Published July 1, 2026 | Version v1
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Tracking the lithiation state of LixSi from machine-learned XPS binding energies

  • 1. ROR icon University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
  • 2. Nanoscience Institute, National Research Council (CNR-NANO), 41125 Modena, Italy
  • 3. ROR icon École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

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Description

X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) is a powerful technique to probe chemical states and interfacial processes in battery materials, but a quantitative interpretation is often hindered by the complex, heterogeneous microstructures that form during operation and dominate electrochemical cycling. Silicon based anodes represent a paradigmatic example in Li batteries, as (de)lithiation proceeds through the formation of strongly disordered LixSi phases and crystal-amorphous transformations that are hard to characterize. Here, we introduce a computational framework that combines machine-learning (ML) prediction of core-level binding energies to large-scale atomistic simulations - Grand Canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) complemented with molecular dynamics (MD), driven by a ML potential - for a systematic sampling of lithiation states and local atomic environments. This approach yields stoichiometry maps that capture the main spectroscopic trends observed in XPS measurements, including the distinctive Si 2p signatures associated with the crystal-to-amorphous disordering during early delithiation. This repository contains the datasets supporting this work, including the training and validation datasets used to develop the ML model and the atomistic structures generated using melt–quench–annealing (MQA) and GCMC simulations.

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Funding

European Commission
BIG-MAP - Battery Interface Genome - Materials Acceleration Platform 957189
European Commission
MaX - Materials design at the Exascale 101093374
European Research Council (ERC)
FIAMMA 101001890
NCCR MARVEL
Swiss National Science Foundation 205602
European Commission
BATTERY 2030+ initiative 957213
European Commission
MUR – Prin 2022 programme (2D-FRONTIERS) 20228879FT
Swiss National Science Foundation
Sinergia CRSII5_202296

References

Preprint
Bertran, Michael Alejandro Hernandez, et al. "Tracking the Lithiation State of Li $ _x $ Si from Machine-Learned XPS Binding Energies." arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.23028 (2026)., doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2602.23028