Ionic conductive GeS2-Ga2S3-Li2S-LiI glass powders prepared by mechanical synthesis

Mechanical synthesis is a low-cost industrial-compatible technique to fabricate chalcogenide glasses. In this paper, the mechanical synthesis of the ionic conductive GeS2-Ga2S3-Li2S-LiI glass powders by ball milling is studied. The structure, glass-forming ability, and ionic conductivity are compared with the reported GeS2-Ga2S3-Li2S-LiI glasses prepared by the melt-quench process. The similarity of the glass network fabricated by these two techniques is revealed by Raman spectroscopy. As for the conductivity, about 1/3-1/2 of the conductivity of the bulk glass can be achieved by simply cold-pressing the as-milled glass powders into pellets. Evident “room-temperature sintering” is observed in the Li-rich samples, which plays a key role in achieving high ionic conductivity in the cold-pressed pellets.