Structural characterisation of a layered double hydroxide nanosheet
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Updated: Apr 28, 2026

Atomically Defined Templates for Epitaxial Growth of Complex Oxide Thin Films
Published on: December 4, 2014
Nicholas P Funnell1, Qiang Wang, Leigh Connor
1Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QR, UK. dermot.ohare@chem.ox.ac.uk andrew.goodwin@chem.ox.ac.uk.
Abstract:
We report the atomic-scale structure of a Zn₁₅₂Al-borate layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanosheet, as determined by reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) modelling of X-ray total scattering data. This study involves the extension of the RMC method to enable structural refinement of two-dimensional nanomaterials. The refined LDH models show the intra-layer geometry in this highly-exfoliated phase to be consistent with that observed in crystalline analogues, with the reciprocal-space scattering data suggesting a disordered arrangement of the Zn(2+) and Al(3+) cations within the nanosheet. The approach we develop is generalisable and so offers a method of characterising the structures of arbitrary nanosheet phases, including systems that support complex forms of disorder within the nanosheets themselves.
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