{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp12_substrate_denial72_20260805","cell_id":"incentive_compatible_rule_design__chemistry_materials","arm":"CONSTRAINED_MAX","candidate_id":"incentive_compatible_rule_design__chemistry_materials__CONSTRAINED_MAX","decision":"PROPOSAL","abstention_reason":null,"proposal":{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp12_substrate_denial72_20260805","cell_id":"incentive_compatible_rule_design__chemistry_materials","arm":"CONSTRAINED_MAX","candidate_id":"incentive_compatible_rule_design__chemistry_materials__CONSTRAINED_MAX","proposal_index":1,"version":0,"title":"Strain-Gated Ionic Interlayer That Makes Protruding Metal Deposition Self-Penalizing","problem":"In a lithium-metal test cell, microscopic surface protrusions can concentrate electric field and ionic current. An advanced deposition front can therefore capture more lithium-ion flux and advance still faster, although the system objective is a flat, dense deposit. This is a material best-response problem: competing surface locations draw from a shared flux, and the unmodified transport environment gives the locally most advanced location a growth advantage. Material subsystems are not intentional agents; here a best response is operationally the transport and deposition path with the lowest local electrochemical and mechanical cost.","actors":["Competing microscopic lithium-deposition fronts on one anode","Lithium-ion flux distributed among parallel paths to different surface locations","A passive strain-gated, ion-conducting interlayer","The separator, electrolyte, and counterelectrode supplying the shared flux"],"observable_state":"For each surface location, observe initial height and curvature, interlayer compression, local ionic conductance or current density, and subsequent height change. Cell-average voltage is secondary because it can remain acceptable while spatial current concentrates.","consequence":"If advanced locations retain a local transport advantage, height variation can amplify, producing rough or porous deposition, electrically isolated metal, interfacial damage, or separator penetration.","affected_objective":"Maintain spatially uniform, dense metal deposition at a usable total current while limiting added impedance and preserving separator integrity.","intervention":"Confine a thin, electronically insulating, ion-conducting elastomeric membrane between the metal surface and a dimensionally stable porous support. Give the membrane normally open vertical ion channels whose cross-section or connectivity decreases reversibly under incremental local compression. A growing protrusion displaces and compresses the membrane directly above itself, narrowing those channels and raising that location's ionic resistance; less-advanced locations retain more-open paths. Under fixed electrical conditions, flux is thereby redirected toward flatter or recessed regions. The load-bearing design requirement is a negative local conductance response to compression over the operating range, not a sensor, controller, or reported measurement.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Participant Role Map","domain_realization":"Each microscopic deposition site competes for a shared lithium-ion supply; parallel membrane channels define its available access, and the membrane is the rule environment that allocates flux."},{"archetype_element":"Desired Outcome Specification","domain_realization":"The real target is low spatial variation and dense deposition, not merely acceptable average current, voltage, or deposited mass."},{"archetype_element":"Action and Choice Set","domain_realization":"Ion flux can traverse parallel paths terminating at protruding, flat, or recessed surface locations; a deposition front advances only where charge and ions arrive."},{"archetype_element":"Private Information or Local State","domain_realization":"Protrusion height is local state that need not be measured globally. Direct mechanical contact converts that state into collocated membrane strain."},{"archetype_element":"Exploitable Rule","domain_realization":"With a strain-insensitive interface, geometric field focusing can make an already advanced location the lower-cost, higher-flux path, so local advantage reinforces itself."},{"archetype_element":"Incentive Payoff Map","domain_realization":"The physical payoff is relative deposition rate, set by ionic resistance, overpotential, field geometry, and mechanical work. The intervention adds a rising transport cost specifically to further advance at an already protruding site."},{"archetype_element":"Truthfulness Condition and Verification Rule","domain_realization":"A protrusion cannot obtain high-flux status without physically displacing the adjacent membrane. That same displacement closes its channels, so the relevant state is coupled directly to its consequence rather than represented by a manipulable proxy."},{"archetype_element":"Penalty or Reward Rule","domain_realization":"Advanced sites incur higher local ionic resistance, while flatter or recessed sites retain lower-resistance paths. This changes the relative kinetic payoff without stopping all deposition."},{"archetype_element":"Participation and Fairness Constraint","domain_realization":"At nominal preload, every flat surface location must remain sufficiently conductive and follow the same displacement-to-conductance relation; otherwise the layer merely blocks the cell or creates privileged fixed paths."},{"archetype_element":"Strategic Response Test","domain_realization":"Seed bumps, shoulders, pits, and lateral bypass routes, then test whether flux moves away from advanced regions or merely concentrates at their edges."},{"archetype_element":"Failure and Gaming Monitor","domain_realization":"Offline conductance maps and pre/post topography test for edge leakage, channel fatigue, hysteresis, and migration of growth to unpenalized locations; these measurements evaluate the mechanism but do not operate it."}],"mechanism_mapping":[{"mechanism_slug":"anti_gaming_scoring_rule","role":"The baseline interface effectively rewards protrusion with greater flux. Strain-gated conductance reverses that local score by reducing access as the location advances.","counterfactual_removal":"If ionic conductance is insensitive to local compression, a protrusion does not create its own transport cost and the essential leveling mechanism disappears."},{"mechanism_slug":"self_selection_menu","role":"Parallel surface locations present a physical menu of transport impedances. Lithium-ion flux passively distributes toward the more-open, lower-resistance paths associated with less-advanced regions.","counterfactual_removal":"If all paths remain equally conductive or lateral transport cannot redistribute flux, there is no physical self-selection away from the protrusion."},{"mechanism_slug":"audit_and_penalty_system","role":"Mechanical contact continuously and locally couples the disfavored state—excess advance—to its consequence—channel narrowing—without sampling, inference, reporting, or human enforcement.","counterfactual_removal":"If displacement is sensed elsewhere, averaged globally, or not collocated with resistance change, the layer adds bulk impedance but does not impose a site-specific consequence."}],"causal_chain":["A stochastic surface location advances slightly beyond neighboring locations.","That geometry would otherwise attract additional local field or ionic flux.","The advancing location displaces the confined elastomeric interlayer more than neighboring locations.","Local compression narrows or disconnects ion-conducting channels directly above the advanced location.","Its local ionic resistance rises relative to paths above flatter or recessed locations.","Under the same externally fixed electrical condition, a larger share of flux follows the remaining lower-resistance paths.","Less-advanced locations then receive greater growth opportunity relative to the protrusion, conditionally suppressing amplification of height variation.","The coupling repeats passively at each location without computation, sensing, reporting, or procedural intervention."],"baseline":"Use a geometry-, thickness-, preload-, and nominal-conductance-matched porous interlayer whose ionic conductance is substantially insensitive to compression. A conventional separator without the experimental interlayer is a secondary baseline. Both receive the same seeded topography and electrical input.","nearest_rivals":["A uniformly high-modulus separator or solid electrolyte that resists every protrusion mechanically rather than applying a displacement-dependent local transport cost.","A three-dimensional current collector that reduces nominal current density by increasing area but does not necessarily reverse the advantage of an individual advanced site.","An electrolyte additive or artificial interphase that changes nucleation and transport chemistry globally rather than coupling local height to local resistance.","A candidate molecular leveling additive that adsorbs preferentially at high-flux locations; this is the closest causal rival because it may also create passive local negative feedback through chemistry.","Externally pulsed current, spatial sensing, or active pressure control that attempts to correct roughness through a time-dependent control loop."],"remaining_contrastive_claim":"The surviving testable claim is narrow and mechanistic: if local surface advance is coupled directly and reversibly to a collocated decrease in ionic conductance, the state that would otherwise capture additional flux creates its own transport cost, permitting passive spatial reallocation. This differs from uniform blocking, added electrode area, global chemical modification, and active temporal control. It is neither a novelty claim nor a performance claim.","authority_safety":{"decision_authority":"A qualified electrochemistry laboratory principal investigator and the institution's chemical and electrical safety authority decide whether the bounded surrogate experiment proceeds. Their authority governs safe testing but is not part of the deposition mechanism.","authorized_first_step":"Only a current-limited, openable aqueous-metal surrogate study using centimeter-scale coupons, secondary containment, and approved laboratory ventilation is authorized initially. Characterize indentation-dependent conductance before any deposition experiment.","excluded_actions":["No lithium metal or flammable organic electrolyte in the first evidence step","No sealed, pressurized, high-energy, or scaled battery cells","No cycling to deliberate short circuit or thermal failure","No unreviewed reactive chemicals or loads beyond fixture ratings","No human or animal testing","No active sensor, algorithm, or operator feedback used to create the proposed leveling effect","No safety, lifetime, or commercial-performance claims from the surrogate study"],"halt_rollback":"Stop and de-energize on leakage, gas evolution beyond the expected surrogate reaction, abnormal heating, fixture overload, membrane tearing, electrical shorting, or irreversible conductance loss. Release the mechanical load, isolate and dispose of the coupon under the laboratory waste protocol, and revert to non-depositing indentation/conductance measurements. The prototype is removable, so rollback consists of removing the interlayer and retaining the matched baseline fixture."},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"At matched mean impedance, protrusions may still receive equal or greater current because flux bypasses closed channels and concentrates at protrusion shoulders. Alternatively, the required compression response may be too weak, slow, or irreversible. Either result would show that the proposed physical consequence is not usefully collocated with the state it is intended to counteract.","problem_falsifier":"The stated problem is falsified for the selected conditions if seeded protrusions in the strain-insensitive baseline do not receive greater incremental growth or local current than matched flat regions.","intervention_falsifier":"The intervention is falsified if the membrane lacks a reversible monotonic decrease in local ionic conductance with indentation, or if seeded protrusions do not show a lower bump-to-flat incremental-growth ratio than the strain-insensitive control at matched nominal resistance.","risks":["Added bulk impedance may prevent useful transport before local gating becomes strong enough.","Channel closure may redirect current to protrusion shoulders and create branching rather than leveling.","Mechanical fatigue or hysteresis may permanently isolate surface regions.","The membrane may delaminate, creep, tear, or lose spatial registration under cycling.","Chemical incompatibility at a lithium interface may dominate the mechanical mechanism.","Manufacturing variation or preload error may close all channels or create fixed high-flux defects.","Pressure and trapped metal could worsen separator damage in eventual lithium tests.","Behavior in an aqueous surrogate may not transfer to lithium-metal chemistry."]},"next_evidence_step":"Run a bounded 2-by-2 surrogate study: strain-gated versus geometry-matched strain-insensitive membranes, each over flat versus deliberately seeded-bump electrodes, with three independently fabricated aqueous zinc microcells per condition. First map conductance at several controlled indentation levels and after unloading. Then deposit the same charge with a current-limited supply, image pre/post topography, and compare normalized incremental growth at bumps and adjacent flat regions. Do not proceed to lithium unless the conductance sign, reversibility, and spatial growth comparison all support the causal chain and a separate safety review authorizes the next stage.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","diversity_from_prior_proposals":"No other proposals or experiment cells were inspected, so comparative diversity is not asserted. Internally, this candidate is distinguished by a passive, spatially collocated mechanical-to-ionic-resistance transfer function rather than governance, software, reporting, or a generic catalytic pathway.","revision_record":{"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":["Constructed an initial candidate that preserves best-response, local-state, verification, consequence, and rival-response structure in a material system.","Confined the essential effect to passive mechanical deformation and ionic transport.","Specified matched controls, direct falsifiers, and a non-lithium first evidence step."],"conceptual_changes":["Initial version; no parent proposal exists.","Defined material best response operationally as relative transport and deposition rate rather than attributing intention to ions.","Narrowed the intervention to a sign-correct, collocated strain-to-conductance coupling."],"operational_changes":["Limited initial work to removable centimeter-scale aqueous surrogate cells.","Excluded active control and hazardous lithium testing from the authorized first step."],"evidence_changes":["No external evidence was gathered.","Added a strain-insensitive matched control, seeded topography, and direct conductance-versus-indentation measurement."],"claim_changes":["No novelty, prevalence, demand, or effect-size claim is made.","The remaining claim is explicitly conditional and mechanistic; prior art remains unsearched."]},"substrate_contract":{"primary_allowed_process":"PHYSICAL_MATERIAL","counterfactual_independence":"Remove all software, algorithms, databases, dashboards, reporting, incentives, authorization rules, procedural enforcement, and operator feedback after assembly. A protrusion would still compress the confined membrane; its local channels would still narrow; local ionic resistance would still rise; and flux could still redistribute through more-open neighboring paths. Offline measurements are needed only to test whether this happens, not to cause it.","forbidden_channel_audit":"The operative chain contains no sensor, inferred classification, digital control loop, human reward or penalty, access decision, compliance procedure, or information-routing step. Fixed preload and electrical input are boundary conditions. Safety authorization limits experimentation but does not produce the proposed effect. The archetype's verification and consequence elements are realized by direct mechanical contact and ion-transport impedance, so removing every forbidden wrapper leaves the essential causal mechanism intact."}}}