Skip to content

Low temperature mixed spin state of Co3+ in LaCoO3 evidenced from Jahn-Teller lattice distortions

V. Gnezdilov, K. -Y. Choi, Yu. Pashkevich, P. Lemmens, S. Shiryaev, G. Bychkov, S. Barilo, V. Fomin, A. V. Yeremenko

cond-mat.str-elarXiv:cond-mat/0601121

Abstract

One- and multi-phonon excitations of the single crystalline LaCoO3 were studied using Raman spectroscopy in the temperature region of 5 K - 300 K. First-order Raman spectra show a larger number of phonon modes than allowed for the rhombohedral structure. Additional phonon modes are interpreted in terms of activated modes due to lattice distortions, arising from the Jahn-Teller (JT) activity of the intermediate-spin (IS) state of Co3+ ions. In particular, the 608-cm-1 stretching-type mode shows anomalous behavior in peak energy and scattering intensity as a function of temperature. The anomalous temperature dependence of the second-order phonon excitations spectra is in accordance with the Franck-Condon mechanism that is characteristic for a JT orbital order.

Create a lesson