Domains and Domain Walls in GIC's

DOMAINS AND DOMAIN-WALLS IN GRAPHITE-INTERCALATION COMPOUNDS

Seong-HS, Sen-S, Cagin-T, Mahanti-SD, Physical Review B 45, 8841-8844(1992)

ABSTRACT

The structure of domains and domain walls in the low-temperature solid phase of stage-2 alkali-metal graphite intercalation compounds is studied using molecular dynamics (MD) simulation and a model potential obtained from fitting to the liquid structure data. For RbC24, we find small domains of (square-root 7 x square-root 7) structure containing mostly seven Rb atoms and with domain walls consisting of (2 x 2) and (2 x 3) elemental plaquettes. These nanostructures provide a clear picture of the discommensurations and a consistent understanding of the x-ray-diffraction measurements. Based on the simulation results we propose a periodic domain-wall model that explains very well the dominant features of the x-ray structure factor for both RbC24 and CsC24 when we allow for small changes in the planar density.