Evidence for short range orbital order in paramagnetic insulating (Al,V)_2O_3

Abstract

The local structure of (Al_0.06V_0.94)_2O_3 in the paramagnetic insulating (PI) and antiferromagnetically ordered insulating (AFI) phase has been investigated using hard and soft x-ray absorption techniques. It is shown that: 1) on a local scale, the symmetry of the vanadium sites in both the PI and the AFI phase is the same; and 2) the vanadium 3d - oxygen 2p hybridization, as gauged by the oxygen 1s absorption edge, is the same for both phases, but distinctly different from the paramagnetic metallic phase of pure V_2O_3. These findings can be understood in the context of a recently proposed model which relates the long range monoclinic distortion of the antiferromagnetically ordered state to orbital ordering, if orbital short range order in the PI phase is assumed. The measured anisotropy of the x-ray absorption spectra is discussed in relation to spin-polarized density functional calculations.

8 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Mott-Hubbard Metal-Insulator Transition in Paramagnetic V_2O_3: a LDA+DMFT(QMC) Study

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Structural precursor to the metal-insulator transition in V_2O_3
• From VO2 to V2O3: The Metal-Insulator Transition of the Magneli Phase V6O11
• Uncovering the mechanism of the impurity-selective Mott transition in paramagnetic V${}_2$O${}_3$
• The Metal-Insulator Transition of the Magneli phase V_4O_7: Implications for V_2O_3