“…Among these devices, due to high efficiency, zero-emission, and low noise, lithium batteries have attracted considerable attention and have already been used in various applications (Nishi, 2001 ; Goodenough and Kim, 2010 ). In the past few decades, energy density, rate capability, and cycling lifespan of lithium batteries have been significantly improved (Li et al, 2020 ; Sui et al, 2020 ; Wang et al, 2020b ; Luo et al, 2021 ), but still do not fully meet the requirements of electric vehicles (Lu et al, 2013 ) and smart-grids. In order to further improve the performance of lithium batteries, a deeper understanding of the working mechanisms at an atomic scale, which to a large extent are unknown, is desired.…”