Diffuse scattering from a Li–Mn oxide disorderly stacked through flocculation of exfoliated nanosheets

A new type of layered Li–Mn oxide has been synthesized through flocculation of delaminated MnO2 nanosheets with Li ions. X-ray powder diffraction patterns show remarkable broadening of reflections. Diffuse scattering was simulated using the matrix method, taking into account the probability of stacking with different shift vectors. A satisfactorily good fit of the simulated pattern to the observed one was obtained assuming a layer sequence with (1/3)a + (2/3)b, which produces trigonal prismatic sites for guest species; this had a probability around 24% and the other stacking modes were random.