Stepping Up the Kinetics of Li–O₂ Batteries by Shrinking Down the Li₂O₂ Granules through Concertedly Enhanced Catalytic Activity and Photoactivity of Se-Doped LaCoO₃

Owing to their structural tunability for furnishing high catalytic activity and photoactivity, perovskite oxides are a class of promising materials for high-performance photocathode catalysts in a photoassisted lithium oxygen battery (LOB), which is still in its infancy. Herein, single-crystalline LaCoO 3 (LCO) is successfully synthesized through a microwave-assisted approach and selenylated to simultaneously introduce anionic doping and oxygen vacancies, boosting not only the electrocatalytic activity toward reversible Li 2 O 2 formation/decomposition, but also the photoactivity to further reduce the charge/discharge polarization. As a result, LOBs utilizing Se-doped LCO as the photocathode catalyst demonstrate a superior performance under illumination in all aspects of energy efficiency, specific capacity, and cycling stability, ranking among the best reported in the literature for perovskite oxides. The photoenhanced charge kinetics is found to be correlated with the accelerated Li 2 O 2 nucleation with lowered granule size, which is key to both the improved charge/discharge capacity and reversibility. The results underscore the tailoring of perovskite structure to aggrandize both the catalytic activity and photoactivity for concertedly promoting the kinetics of LOBs.