Lithium-ion batteries
are without a doubt a key technology in the
coming energy revolution. It is thus all the more surprising that
one of the more prevalent Li battery anode materials, reduced lithium
titanium oxide (LTO, Li4Ti5O12),
is still poorly understood on a microscopic level. While recent theoretical
and experimental evidence suggests that a polaron hopping mechanism
is responsible for the increased electronic conductivity of reduced
LTO, no such explanation exists for the concurrent improvements to
the ionic mobility. In this computational study, we show that the
presence of polaronic Ti3+ centers can indeed lead to a
significant lowering of Li hopping barriers in both bulk and surface
reduced LTO. For the latter, we find a reduced barrier height of roughly
40 meV compared to that of our pristine reference. This is in accordance
with experimental findings showing that lithium-ion diffusion in reduced
LTO is twice as high as that for pristine LTO. Finally, we show thatin
accordance with experimental observationspolaron formation
upon lithiation of LTO leads to a similar behavior. Altogether, our
analysis hints at a correlated movement of Li ions and polarons, highlighting
LTO’s potential for rational defect engineering.