Patent ID: 7378041

Claim:
An electrode material for a lithium secondary battery, the electrode material comprising alloy particles, the alloy particles comprising: a silicon phase as a major component; and an intermetallic compound dispersed in the silicon phase, wherein the intermetallic compound contains tin and at least one element selected from the group consisting of copper, nickel, cobalt, iron, manganese, vanadium, molybdenum, niobium, tantalum, titanium, zircon, yttrium, lanthanum, selenium, magnesium and silver, wherein the alloy particles have an average particle diameter of 0.02 μm to 5 μm, and wherein the crystallite size of the silicon phase is not less than 2 nm but no more than 500 nm, as determined by the Scherrer Equation Lc=0.94λ/(βcos θ), where Lc is the crystallite size, λ is the wavelength of the X-ray beam, β is the full width at half maximum of peak and θ is the Bragg angle of diffracted rays.