The first systematic study on alloy formation on well-defined nanostructnred materials has been conducted by these authors. Nanostructured silicon and germanium materials were reacted with lithium metal by solid-state chemistry and electrochemical methods, in which nanocrystalline Si (unlike bulk material) forms Li-Si alloys already at room temperature. The Li-Si(Ge) alloys have interesting electrochemical properties, which make them attractive as anode material in lithium batteries.