Oxygen K-edge X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy Database for NMC811 Layered Cathode Materials

Abstract

X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) probes the local chemical environment of the absorbing atom and is one of the most powerful characterization techniques for battery materials. Here we present a database of simulated oxygen K-edge XAS spectra for the layered cathode material LiNi0.8Mn0.1Co0.1O2 (NMC811), built on the atomic structures of our recent work[1]. All spectra were obtained using the excited electron and core-hole (XCH) method with the R2SCAN meta-GGA functional, as implemented in the Vienna Ab initio Simulation Package (VASP). The database covers benchmark binary oxides (TiO, Ti2O3, TiO2, Mn3O4, Mn2O3, MnO2) together with a realistic NMC811 supercell containing 60 transition metal sites at three states of charge. Because each spectrum is resolved at the level of individual oxygen sites, the database links O K-edge spectral features to specific oxygen environments defined by their local coordination and transition metal neighbors. All data are freely available and can serve as a reference for spectral fingerprinting, for direct comparison with experiments, and as training data for machine learning models.