For sixteen years, the city has been awarding the most outstanding young scientists from Brno universities with the Brno Ph.D. Talent scholarship. Among this year's awardees is also Jan Kramář, a doctoral student of physics. He is working on the development of methods for more detailed exploration of alternatives to Li-ion batteries, which are now predominantly used in consumer electronics, electric cars or solar energy storage.

At the same time, Jan Kramář might not have become a physicist at all. "I submitted my application for the Bachelor's programme in Physical Engineering and Nanotechnology at the last possible deadline, I was simply intrigued by the name," he recalls with a smile. He said the first two years of his studies were challenging, but as soon as he got closer to practice, he was enthusiastic about physics. "Erasmus was a turning point for me. I went to Karlsruhe, Germany, where the laboratory of BASF, the largest chemical plant in the world, is located. It is there that it is developing new types of batteries, such as solid-state batteries. That's how I got to my topic, which I've been continuing ever since," says Kramář.

The development of solid-state batteries has so far encountered, among other things, a lack of tools for a comprehensive analysis of their microstructure. Therefore, Jan Kramář's research focuses on correlative electron and probe microscopy, which is suitable not only for studying microstructures but also for degradation processes during battery charging and discharging.

"If I were to compare it, electron microscopy is something like our eyes. Thanks to it, we can observe the sample very quickly and obtain additional information, such as chemical, elemental and structural information. But it is difficult to measure, for example, conductivity or hardness, for that we ideally need to touch the sample. This is the second method, the so-called probe microscopy, where we touch the sample with a very sharp tip, which you can imagine like our finger, for comparison. And the combination allows us to take advantage of both: we can navigate the sample with our eyes and touch it with our finger," says Kramář. Interestingly, the aforementioned "finger" in the form of a sharp tip has a size of units to tens of nanometers.

Both techniques are connected by a device made by NenoVison, which Jan Kramář uses. He also cooperates with this Brno company. "My topic is to find applications of this approach in battery research, which has not been completely standard in the battery industry so far," he says. Because a research team from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication is working on the topic of batteries at BUT, Kramář also collaborates with them. "My colleagues usually prepare samples for my measurements. Their laboratory is also used for research – they have a glove box where the sample can be worked with in a protective argon atmosphere that prevents damage to the sample," adds Kramář.

The aim of his research is to put together a so-called in situ cell that would allow samples to be measured during operation. "This means that we would observe the battery during charging and discharging through a correlative microscope. Then we could follow the whole dynamics of the story," hopes Kramář, who can devote his time fully to research thanks to the Brno Ph.D. Talent scholarship. "In addition, I see the award as a sign that my topic makes sense and is not research that would be put in a drawer later. Applicability is the part of science that I enjoy the most: solving the problems that we face in real life. And I very much hope that I will help battery experts to make even better batteries," concludes Kramář.