Ilika Technologies Limited

Thomas Foley

Brian Elliott Hayden

Thomas Risbridger

Louise Turner

Owain Clark

William Richardson

Gianfranco Aresta

Sara Aghdaei

Robert Noble

Nadeem Rizvi

A method is provided for fabricating a component material for a battery cell. The method comprises the steps of: providing a partially-fabricated battery cell, the partially-fabricated battery cell comprising a substrate having a planar deposition surface consisting of a first face of the substrate and a first battery component layer provided on the planar deposition surface, the substrate having a plurality of further surfaces, the planar deposition surface and the plurality of further surfaces defining the body of the substrate therebetween; wherein: the first battery component layer contains charge-carrying metal species and has an exposed surface; one or more electrically conductive or semi-conductive pathways extend through at least a portion of the substrate, each of the one or more pathways connecting the planar deposition surface to one of the plurality of further surfaces; and the partially-fabricated battery cell is held in position within a deposition chamber by a holding structure and each site of connection between one of the one or more pathways and the holding structure is electrically insulating; the method further comprising the step of depositing a second battery component layer on the first battery component layer, wherein the depositing comprises forming a plasma within the deposition chamber.

Method of fabricating a component material for a battery cell

A method of processing a stack of layers to provide a stack of discrete layer elements, comprises the steps of: providing a stack of layers comprising: #a first layer () provided by a first material; #a third layer () provided by a solid electrolyte; and #a second layer () located between the first and third layers, the second layer having a thickness of at least 500 nm and being provided by a second material comprising at least 95 atomic % amorphous silicon; removing a through-thickness portion of the first layer () to form a first discrete layer element () provided by the first material; removing a through-thickness portion of the second layer () to form a second discrete layer element () provided by the second material, the second discrete layer element being located between the first discrete layer element () and the solid electrolyte; and etching the third layer () using the second discrete layer element () as an etching mask, to form a third discrete layer element () provided by the solid electrolyte; wherein the first, second and third discrete layer elements provide the stack of discrete layer elements.

Method of processing layered structures

A method of processing a thin film structure comprising: providing a thin film structure comprising a stack of two or more thin film layers supported on a surface of a substrate, the stack having a depth orthogonal to the substrate surface; and forming a cut through the depth of the stack by using a direct write laser technique to scan a laser beam along a scan path covering an area of a desired cut line on a surface of the stack to ablate material of the stack along the cut line and through the depth of the stack at least to the surface of the substrate; wherein the direct write laser technique is implemented using an ultrashort pulsed laser outputting pulses with a duration of 1000 femtoseconds or less, at a wavelength in the range of 100 to 1500 nm, and delivering a fluence in the range of 50 to 100,000 mJ/cm2.

Laser processing method for thin film structures

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Southampton, United Kingdom

Thomas Foley