Introduction

Abstract

The field of graphite intercalation compounds (GICs) has been witnessing a tremendous worldwide growth in research activity in recent years. Many of the open questions which were of pressing urgency ten years ago have meanwhile been dealt with and in many cases satisfactory answers have been found. These were questions concerning the origin of staging, the kinetics of stage formation and transitions, the complex structure of modulated intercalate layers in higher stage compounds, the vibrational excitations and the diffusivity of the intercalates, just to name a few. In all of these areas, major theoretical and experimental advances have been made and documented in part by a sequence of conference proceedings over the last couple of years. A number of larger or smaller review articles have also appeared during this period. The first international symposium on GICs was held in La Napoule, France (1977) [1.1], followed by symposia at Cape Code, USA (1981) [1.2], Pont-à-Mousson, France (1983) [1.3], Tsukuba, Japan (1985) [1.4], Jerusalem, Israel (1987) [1.6], and Berlin, Germany (1989) [1.6]. Further conferences on the properties of layered solids including GICs were held at Nijmegen, The Netherlands (1979) [1.7], Trieste, Italy (1982) [1.8] and Erice, Italy (1986) [1.9]. Meetings on the topic of graphite intercalation compounds have been held at the biannual Carbon Conferences and the Materials Research Society Fall Meetings in Boston since 1982.