On April 23, 2026 (Beijing Time), Associate Professor Liu Chuanlai from the research group led by Professor Dong Jie, part of the team led by Academician Ding Wenjiang at the National Engineering Research Center of Light Alloy Precision Forming, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, published a research paper titled “Mechanically driven Li dendrite penetration in garnet solid electrolyte” online in Nature, a leading international academic journal. Addressing the challenge of battery short-circuit failures caused by Li dendrite growth in all-solid-state lithium metal batteries, this study, for the first time, revealed the stress-driven growth mechanism of Li dendrites in solid electrolytes from the nanoscale to the microscale. It proposed the directional regulation of dendrite growth paths through structural defects such as micropores, significantly enhancing the cyclic stability of solid-state batteries. This discovery holds great significance for achieving next-generation all-solid-state lithium batteries with high energy density, high safety, and long lifespan. Using multi-scale cryo-electron microscopy techniques and micro-mechanical fracture models, the research team directly observed that Li dendrites completely filled nanoscale crack tips and extended into micrometer-scale cracks, revealing a new mechanism of mechanically driven Li dendrite growth and crack propagation. Based on this mechanism, the research team proposed a method to directionally regulate dendrite growth paths by introducing geometric defects, offering a novel strategy to address short-circuit failures caused by dendrite penetration in solid-state batteries. This research was a collaborative effort among Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials in Germany, and the French National Centre for Scientific Research.