Lithium nickel cobalt oxides as cathode materials for lithium ion batteries were modified by Ti-doping and TiO2-coating. The effects of Ti-doping and TiO2-coating on the structural and electrochemical properties of LiNi0.8Co0.2O2 cathode material were investigated and compared. The results of X-ray diffraction (XRD) show that a solid solution phase (R-3 m) is observed in the range of 0 less than or equal to y less than or equal to 0.1 for LiNi0.8-yTiyCo0.2O2 materials, and a new hexagonal phase LiTiO2 appears on the surface of TiO2-coated materials when the atomic ratio of Ti/(Ni + Co) is larger than 0.06. The ordering degree of layered structure was decreased for Ti-doped materials, and almost no changes of bulk structure occurred for TiO2-coated materials. Charge-discharge experiments show both lattice-doping and surface-coating improve the cycling stability of LiNi0.8Co0.2O2 cathode material. Ex-situ XRD of delithiated cathode materials confirms that suppression of lattice changes is attributed to the improved cycling stability of doped materials. But the similar suppression mechanism is not suitable for coated materials. Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) experiments imply that the improvement of cycling performance for coated materials could be interpreted to the interface stability during cycling, (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.