Lithium ion batteries (LIBs) are key components of modern electronics and are regularly utilized as their primary power source. Understanding the electrical and mechanical properties of electrode materials plays a major role in the performance improvement of LIBs. In this article, we provide research using PinPoint™ scanning spreading resistance microscopy (SSRM) to effectively measure both electrical and mechanical properties of LIB electrode surfaces at a much higher quality in a high-vacuum environment than in ambient conditions. The data collected in this experiment demonstrate that this technique is an effective means for measuring the quantitative and qualitative topographical, electrical and mechanical data of advanced materials with improved image quality and data accuracy.

Iron sulfides have attracted much interests for their potential as anode materials in energy storage devices in view of their low costs, and environmentally benign and high theoretical capacities. Among them, Fe1−xS is relatively rarely investigated. In this work, Fe1−xS@rGO has been synthesized using a facile in situ hydrothermal method. After wrapped by rGO, the morphology of Fe1−xS particles changes from hexagonal flakes to irregular particles with much smaller sizes. As the anode material for lithium ion batteries, Fe1−xS@rGO exhibits excellent lithium storage ability. It can deliver an initial discharge capacity of 1575.5 mA h/g in the potential window of 0.005–3 V, and a reversible capacity of 907.8 mA h/g can be maintained after 200 cycles at 100 mA/g. Its improved electrochemical performance can be attributed to the effect of enhanced contact area and shortened Li+ ion transport distance because of rGO’s contribution.

A three-dimensional nanostructured graphene oxide–Mn3O4 hybrid was synthesized by a coprecipitation method and used as an anode material of lithium ion batteries, which reached an initial specific capacity of 1400 mA h/g. This method was developed to simplify the process of fabricating uniform composite nanomaterials for abundant applications. In this work, Mn3O4 particles were coordinately distributed on the surface of reduced graphene oxide nanosheets to avoid detrimental stacking of graphene layers by forming 3D nanostructures, as characterized by a scanning electron microscope. As demonstrated by the in situ observation of a scanning probe microscope, severe pulverization of Mn3O4 particles during charge/discharge processing was significantly abstained when graphene layers constrained swelling and shrinkage. The as-prepared graphene–Mn3O4 nanomaterials exhibited a large specific capacity of 949 mA h/g, high-rechargeable efficiency of ∼98%, and exceptional cyclic stability. After 100 constant-current charging/discharging cycles at 100 mA/g, the specific capacity remained at 792 mA h/g with a coulombic efficiency of 98.1%. Furthermore, the coprecipitation method proposed in this work provides a strategy to fabricate other nanostructured composites for different kinds of applications.