A high performance germanium (Ge) based anode is achieved through an appropriate air annealing post-treatment. Annealed Ge is fabricated by sputtering of Ge onto a stainless steel (SS) current collector and then annealed in air. It shows high specific and volumetric capacities of 1186mAhg−1 and 5887.4mAhcm−3, respectively, at the rate of 812mAg−1 up to 50 cycles. These specific and volumetric capacities are approximately a factor of 20 higher than those from as-deposited Ge on the SS substrate. In addition, the annealed Ge has a higher initial Coulombic efficiency of 90.8% than the as-deposited Ge of 81%. The improved performance of the annealed Ge can be attributed to the enhanced adhesion of annealed Ge film to SS substrate through interdiffusion at the SS/Ge interface due to the annealing post-treatment.