Theory of staging in intercalation compounds

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Abstract
The authors investigate the thermodynamics of a lattice gas model for intercalation, employing a nearest-neighbour intra-plane attraction and both attractive and repulsive forces which decrease with increasing distance between the planes. The free energy F is calculated within the mean-field approximation. The phase diagram is then found analytically by minimisation of F with respect to the number of intercalant atoms in each plane. The authors show how specific choices of the balance between the repulsive and attractive forces deduced from the properties of the material under consideration can qualitatively account for the observed staging behaviour of the different classes of intercalation compounds: graphite intercalation compounds, transition-metal dichalcogenides and clays.

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