Low-energy V t2g orbital excitations in NdVO3

The electronic structure of NdVO3 and YVO3 has been investigated as a function of sample temperature using resonant inelastic soft x-ray scattering at the V L3-edge. Most of the observed spectral features are in good agreement with an atomic crystal-field multiplet model. However, a low energy featu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of physics. Condensed matter 2014-11, Vol.26 (45), p.455603-455603
Main Authors: Laverock, J, Chen, B, Preston, A R H, Newby, D, Piper, L F J, Tung, L D, Balakrishnan, G, Glans, P-A, Guo, J-H, Smith, K E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
crystal field excitations
orbital excitations
resonant inelastic x-ray scattering
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The electronic structure of NdVO3 and YVO3 has been investigated as a function of sample temperature using resonant inelastic soft x-ray scattering at the V L3-edge. Most of the observed spectral features are in good agreement with an atomic crystal-field multiplet model. However, a low energy feature is observed at ∼0.4 eV that cannot be explained by crystal-field arguments. The resonant behaviour of this feature establishes it as due to excitations of the V t2g states. Moreover, this feature exhibits a strong sample temperature dependence, reaching maximum intensity in the orbitally-ordered phase of NdVO3, before becoming suppressed at low temperatures. This behaviour indicates that the origin of this feature is a collective orbital excitation, i.e. the bi-orbiton.
ISSN:0953-8984
1361-648X
DOI:10.1088/0953-8984/26/45/455603