Overview

• The innovative laser-induced conversion process integrates active material synthesis and cathode preparation into a single nanosecond-scale step.
• The method cuts cathode production time from days to minutes, achieving a throughput of approximately 2 cm² per minute.
• A 75 × 45 mm² sulfur cathode was successfully printed in 20 minutes, powering a small screen for several hours in a lithium-sulfur pouch cell demonstration.
• The laser process forms halloysite hybrid nanotubes, sulfur species, and porous carbon in situ, driven by ultra-concentrated thermal events with transient temperatures reaching thousands of Kelvin.
• The study, published in *Nature Communications*, highlights the potential for scalable, cost-effective manufacturing of lithium-sulfur batteries with significantly higher energy density than lithium-ion systems.