biostudies-literatureUnknown16(1)Guo YThe discovery of Nb-W-O materials years ago marks the milestone of charging a lithium-ion battery in minutes. Nevertheless, for many applications, charging lithium-ion battery within one minute is urgently demanded, the bottleneck of which largely lies in the lack of fundamental understanding of Li⁺ storage mechanisms in these materials. Herein, by visualizing Li⁺ intercalated into representative Nb₁₆W₅O₅₅, we find that the fast-charging nature of such material originates from an interesting rate-dependent lattice relaxation process associated with the Jahn-Teller effect. Furthermore, in situ electron microscopy further reveals a directional, [010]-preferred Li⁺ transport mechanism in Nb₁₆W₅O<sub>55</suNature communications2441https://www.ebi.ac.uk/biostudies/studies/S-EPMC11897329biostudies-literatureImproving the fast-charging capability of NbWO-based Li-ion batteries.PMC11897329Sha WYan JGuo YLiao XLi PHe KZeng XLiu TAmine KHuang WWang SNie AGuo CSong WTang XRen QYuan YfalseImproving the fast-charging capability of NbWO-based Li-ion batteries.The discovery of Nb-W-O materials years ago marks the milestone of charging a lithium-ion battery in minutes. Nevertheless, for many applications, charging lithium-ion battery within one minute is urgently demanded, the bottleneck of which largely lies in the lack of fundamental understanding of Li⁺ storage mechanisms in these materials. Herein, by visualizing Li⁺ intercalated into representative Nb₁₆W₅O₅₅, we find that the fast-charging nature of such material originates from an interesting rate-dependent lattice relaxation process associated with the Jahn-Teller effect. Furthermore, in situ electron microscopy further reveals a directional, [010]-preferred Li⁺ transport mechanism in Nb₁₆W₅O<sub>55</su2025-01-01T00:00:00Z2025 Mar2025-04-04T01:29:36.719Z2025-04-04T01:29:36.719ZS-EPMC118973294006914510.1038/s41467-025-57576-1