Structure-Directing Lone Pairs: Synthesis and Structural Characterization of SnTiO3

SnTiO3 was successfully synthesized for the first time in bulk form by soft chemistry. STEM and Rietveld refinement show that SnTiO3 adopts a structure similar to the archetypical ilmenite-type structure, forming a honeycomb lattice of edge-sharing TiO6-octahedra, which are decorated with Sn2+. Given the formation of a van der Waals gap between the individual layers and hence close energetic minima of different stacking types, SnTiO3 forms multiple stacking orders and twinning domains that we describe by systematic DIFFaX-simulations. The structure is governed by the tin lone pairs, which influence the stacking of the layers as well as local distortions observed by EELS and NMR, potentially leading to a wide range of applications.