Crystal growth and structure of a high temperature polymorph of Sr2TiO4 with tetrahedral Ti-coordination, and transition to the Ruddlesden–Popper tetragonal phase

Single crystals of transition metal oxides forming the Ruddlesden–Popper series are necessary for complete studies of their often exciting physical properties. In the strontium titanate family, crystal growth of all compounds apart from SrTiO3 has been elusive so far. We have successfully grown crys...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:CrystEngComm 2022-05, Vol.24 (20), p.3731-3740
Main Authors: Pulmannová, Dorota, Besnard, Céline, Bezdička, Petr, Hadjimichael, Marios, Teyssier, Jéremie, Giannini, Enrico
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Crystal growth
Crystal structure
Crystals
Ferroelectricity
High temperature
Low temperature
Physical properties
Single crystals
Strontium titanates
Tetrahedra
Titanium
Transition metal oxides
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Summary:Single crystals of transition metal oxides forming the Ruddlesden–Popper series are necessary for complete studies of their often exciting physical properties. In the strontium titanate family, crystal growth of all compounds apart from SrTiO3 has been elusive so far. We have successfully grown crystals of the high-temperature polymorph of Sr2TiO4, by using a floating-zone melt growth followed by a rapid cooling procedure. We report the crystal structure of the new modification, which is isostructural to the orthorhombic Sr2VO4 and Sr2CrO4. This structure hosts an uncommon layered sub-lattice of TiO4 tetrahedra and transforms into the tetragonal low-temperature polymorph via a complex reconstructive transition. The transformation mechanism between the two phases was studied and explains the reasons for the unsuccessful growth of tetragonal Sr2TiO4. The orthorhombic Sr2TiO4 is an insulator, with a band gap of 3.9 eV. It has a large (≈40) dielectric constant, but despite its polar structure does not show any signatures of a ferroelectric order.
ISSN:1466-8033
DOI:10.1039/d2ce00366j