Sodium metal batteries hold great promise for energy-dense and low-cost energy storage technology but are severely impeded by catastrophic dendrite issue. State-of-the-art strategies including sodiophilic seeding/hosting interphase design manifest great success on dendrite suppression, while neglecting unavoidable interphase-depleted Na ⁺ before plating, which poses excessive Na use, sacrificed output voltage and ultimately reduced energy density. We here demonstrate that elaborate-designed fluorinated porous framework could simultaneously realize superior sodiophilicity yet negligible interphase-consumed Na ⁺ for dendrite-free and durable Na batteries. As elucidated by physicochemical and theoretical characterizations, well-defined fluorinated edges on porous channels are responsible for both high affinities ensuring uniform deposition and low reactivity rendering superior Na ⁺ utilization for plating. Accordingly, synergistic performance enhancement is achieved with stable 400 cycles and superior plateau to sloping capacity ratio in anode-free batteries. Proof-of-concept pouch cells deliver an energy density of 325 Watt-hours per kilogram and robust 300 cycles under anode-less condition, opening an avenue with great extendibility for the practical deployment of metal batteries.

Constructing robust nucleation sites with an ultrafine size in a confined environment is essential toward simultaneously achieving superior utilization, high capacity, and long-term durability in Na metal-based energy storage, yet remains largely unexplored. Here, we report a previously unexplored design of spatially confined atomic Sn in hollow carbon spheres for homogeneous nucleation and dendrite-free growth. The designed architecture maximizes Sn utilization, prevents agglomeration, mitigates volume variation, and allows complete alloying-dealloying with high-affinity Sn as persistent nucleation sites, contrary to conventional spatially exposed large-size ones without dealloying. Thus, conformal deposition is achieved, rendering an exceptional capacity of 16 mAh cm ⁻² in half-cells and long cycling over 7000 hours in symmetric cells. Moreover, the well-known paradox is surmounted, delivering record-high Na utilization (e.g., 85%) and large capacity (e.g., 8 mAh cm ⁻² ) while maintaining extraordinary durability over 5000 hours, representing an important breakthrough for stabilizing Na anode.

As an anisotropic 2D layered material, rhenium disulfide (ReS₂) has attracted much attention because of its unusual properties and promising applications in electronic and optoelectronic devices. However, the low lattice symmetry and interlayer decoupling of ReS₂ make asymmetric growth and out-of-plane growth occur quite easily; therefore, thick flake, dendritic and flower-like structures of ReS₂ have mostly been obtained previously. Here, we report on an approach based on space-confined epitaxial growth for the controlled synthesis of ReS₂ films. Using this approach, large-area and high-quality ReS₂ films with uniform monolayer thickness can grow on a mica substrate. Furthermore, the weak van der Waals interaction between the surface of mica and ReS₂ clusters, which favors surface-confined growth while avoiding out-of-plane growth, is critical for growing ReS₂ with uniform monolayer thickness. The morphological evolution of ReS₂ with the growth temperature reveals that asymmetric growth can be suppressed at relatively low temperatures. A ReS₂ field-effect transistor displayed a current on/off ratio of 10⁶ and an electron mobility of up to 40 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹, with outstanding photoresponsivity of 12 A W⁻¹. This work not only promotes the large-scale employment of ReS₂ in high-performance optoelectronic devices, but also provides a means of controlling the unusual growth behavior of low-lattice-symmetry 2D layered materials.

Size tailored black BiVO ₄ colloids with rich oxygen vacancies were generated via facile laser processing for high performance sodium storage.

Exploiting high‐performance yet low‐cost hard carbon anodes is crucial to advancing the state‐of‐the‐art sodium‐ion batteries. However, the achievement of superior initial Coulombic efficiency (ICE) and high Na‐storage capacity via low‐temperature carbonization remains challenging due to the presence of tremendous defects with few closed pores. Here, a facile hybrid carbon framework design is proposed from the polystyrene precursor bearing distinct molecular bridges at a low pyrolysis temperature of 800°C via in situ fusion and embedding strategy. This is realized by integrating triazine‐ and carbonyl‐crosslinked polystyrene nanospheres during carbonization. The triazine crosslinking allows in situ fusion of spheres into layered carbon with low defects and abundant closed pores, which serves as a matrix for embedding the well‐retained carbon spheres with nanopores/defects derived from carbonyl crosslinking. Therefore, the hybrid hard carbon with intimate interface showcases synergistic Na ions storage behavior, showing an ICE of 70.2%, a high capacity of 279.3 mAh g⁻¹, and long‐term 500 cycles, superior to carbons from the respective precursor and other reported carbons fabricated under the low carbonization temperature. The present protocol opens new avenues toward low‐cost hard carbon anode materials for high‐performance sodium‐ion batteries.

Developing safe and high-voltage solid-state polymer electrolytes for high-specific-energy lithium metal batteries holds great promise. However, low ionic conductivity, limited Li⁺ transference number, narrow voltage window, and high flammability greatly hinder their practical applications. Herein, we propose a puzzle-like molecular assembly strategy to construct a solid-state polymer electrolyte via in situ polymerization. The triallyl phosphate and 2,2,3,3,4,4,4-heptafluorobutyl methacrylate segments are spliced into the vinyl ethylene carbonate matrix to enhance anion affinity and promote lithium salt dissociation, resulting in a high ionic conductivity of 0.432 mS cm^-1 and a Li⁺ transference number of 0.70 at 25 °C. Meanwhile, the polymer electrolyte exhibits a high oxidation voltage of 5.15 V, enabled by its intrinsic high-voltage tolerance and the formation of a robust inorganic-rich interphase. As a result, the Li||LiNi_0.6Co_0.2Mn_0.2O₂ cell maintains stable performance for 300 cycles and reliably cycles even with an application-oriented mass loading of 15.8 mg cm^-2. The 2.6-Ah Li||LiNi_0.8Co_0.1Mn_0.1O₂ pouch cell reaches a high specific energy of 349 Wh kg^-1. Furthermore, the developed polymer electrolyte displays superior nonflammability and the Li||LiFePO₄ cell exhibits stable cycling for over 120 cycles at 100 °C. Both accelerating rate calorimetry and nail penetration tests verify the high safety of the pouch cells using the designed polymer electrolyte, showing the potential for practical applications.