Guest-Host Chemical Bonding and Possibility of Ordering of Intercalated Metals in Transition-Metal Dichalcogenides

The comparison of the specifics of the guest-host chemical bonding in the materials with (FexTiSe2) and without (FexTiTe2) ordering of the iron atoms was performed. For this purpose the electronic structure of the materials were studied using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, resonant X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and theoretical calculations (total density of states, partial density of states, and multiplet calculations). For the iron-intercalated TiTe2 compound iron-chalcogen bonds are formed, whereas the formation of iron-iron bonds is most typical for the iron-intercalated TiSe2 compound. This leads to an increase in the lifetime of electrons on the titanium atoms and does not allow the formation of atomic chains of intercalated metal. © 2018 American Chemical Society