Structural, electronic, and magneto-optical properties of YVO$_3$

A. A. Tsvetkov; F. P. Mena; P. H. M. van Loosdrecht; D. van der Marel; Y. Ren; A. A. Nugroho; A. A. Menovsky; I. S. Elfimov; G. A. Sawatzky

doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.69.075110

paper

Structural, electronic, and magneto-optical properties of YVO $_{3}$

arXiv:cond-mat/0308224 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.69.075110

Abstract

Optical and magneto-optical properties of YVO $_{3}$ single crystal were studied in FIR, visible, and UV regions. Two structural phase transitions at 75 K and 200 K were observed and established to be of the first and second order, respectively. The lattice has an orthorhombic $P bnm$ symmetry both above 200 K as well as below 75 K, and is found to be dimerized monoclinic $P b 11$ in between. We identify YVO $_{3}$ as a Mott-Hubbard insulator with the optical gap of 1.6 eV. The electronic excitations in the visible spectrum are determined by three $d$ -bands at 1.8, 2.4, and 3.3 eV, followed by the charge-transfer transitions at about 4 eV. The observed structure is in good agreement with LSDA+ $U$ band structure calculations. By using ligand field considerations, we assigned these bands to the transitions to the $^{4} A_{2 g}$ , $^{2} E_{g} +^{2} T_{1 g}$ , and $^{2} T_{2 g}$ states. The strong temperature dependence of these bands is in agreement with the formation of orbital order. Despite the small net magnetic moment of 0.01 $μ_{B}$ per vanadium, the Kerr effect of the order of $0.0 1^{\circ}$ was observed for all three $d$ -bands in the magnetically ordered phase $T_{N e ˊ el} < 116 K$ . A surprisingly strong enhancement of the Kerr effect was found below 75 K, reaching a maximum of $0. 1^{\circ}$ . The effect is ascribed to the non-vanishing net orbital magnetic moment.

Submitted to Phys. Rev. B

Structural, electronic, and magneto-optical properties of YVO3​

Abstract

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Structural, electronic, and magneto-optical properties of YVO $_{3}$