What if we could make batteries work better by studying how their atoms dance? That’s exactly what A. Dive and S. Banerjee at Washington State University set out to explore. Their research dives into a powerful form of a sodium-based material called NaPS+-normally only super fast at high temperatures— and shows how to make it mimic that speed even at room temperature.
At the heart of their work is the way sodium ions move through solid electrolytes. The “y-phase” of NaPS is a top performer, but it only exists above 500°C. Using advanced simulations, the team uncovered that its speed comes from the wild rotation of tiny PS tetrahedra, like spinning tops, which clear paths for ions to fly through. So, the researchers wondered: can we fake this behavior without all that heat?
The answer lies in turning NaPS+ into a glassy, amorphous form and then applying just the right heat treatment. By carefully tuning the mix of local structures— especially boosting PS4 and PS3 units-they achieved high sodium-ion mobility at much lower temperatures. Structures rich in these units rotated more easily and let ions glide through with less resistance.
This work offers practical guidelines for engineering better glass-ceramic solid electrolytes that could power safer, cheaper, and more efficient sodium-ion batteries. Dive and Banerjee’s discovery makes the dream of room-temperature superionic conductivity a lot more real.