Crystal Chemistry and Electronic Structure of the Metallic Lithium Ion Conductor, LiNiN

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The layered ternary nitride LiNiN shows an interesting combination of fast Li+ ion diffusion and metallic behavior, properties which suggest potential applications as an electrode material in lithium ion batteries. A detailed investigation of the structure and properties of LiNiN using powder neutron diffraction, ab initio calculations, SQUID magnetometry, and solid-state NMR is described. Variable-temperature neutron diffraction demonstrates that LiNiN forms a variant of the parent Li3N structure in which Li+ ion vacancies are ordered within the [LiN] planes and with Ni exclusively occupying interlayer positions (at 280 K: hexagonal space group Pm2, a = 3.74304(5) A, c = 3.52542(6) A, Z = 1). Calculations suggest that LiNiN is a one-dimensional metal, as a result of the mixed pi- and sigma-bonding interactions between Ni and N along the c-axis. Solid-state 7Li NMR spectra are consistent with both fast Li+ motion and metallic behavior.