Correlation between oxygen vacancies and sites of Mn ions in YMnO{sub 3}

Journal Article · Mon Feb 09 00:00:00 EST 2015 · Applied Physics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4909547· OSTI ID:22412618

Cheng, Shaobo; Deng, S. Q.; Zhu, Jing ^[1]; Zhao, Y. G. ^[2]; Sun, X. F. ^[3]

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1. National Center for Electron Microscopy in Beijing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, The State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials (MOE), Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084 (China)
2. Department of Physics and State Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Quantum Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084 (China)
3. Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026 (China)

In multiferroic hexagonal manganites (RMnO{sub 3}, R = Y, Sc, Ho-Lu), positions of Mn ions can affect both their in-plane and inter-plane exchange interactions, thus they are of utmost importance for the magneto-elastic coupling of rare-earth compounds. However, the reported in-plane positions of Mn ions by different groups are controversial and there is a lack of convenient method to identify the shift of Mn ions from the center of MnO{sub 5} bipyramids. Here, we demonstrate that the transmission electron microscopy is an efficient technique to characterize the positions of Mn ions and the shift of Mn ions can be directly recognized from the selected area electron diffraction (SAED) patterns. Through systematic studies on the SAED patterns acquired from regions with stoichiometric and non-stoichiometric ratio, we conclude that the intensities of (11{sup ¯}0) and (22{sup ¯}0) diffraction spots are very sensitive to the in-plane positions of Mn ions. We ascribe the off-centered shift of Mn ions to the in-plane oxygen vacancies and this is verified by combined electron microscopy and electron diffraction pattern calculations. Our results indicate that SAED can be used to judge both local positions of Mn ions and local oxygen deficiency in RMnO{sub 3} systems.

• OSTI ID: 22412618
• Journal Information: Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 6; Other Information: (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0003-6951
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
CORRELATIONS
COUPLING
ELECTRON DIFFRACTION
EXCHANGE INTERACTIONS
HEXAGONAL LATTICES
HOLMIUM COMPOUNDS
LUTETIUM COMPOUNDS
MANGANATES
MANGANESE IONS
SCANDIUM COMPOUNDS
STOICHIOMETRY
TRANSMISSION ELECTRON MICROSCOPY
VACANCIES
YTTRIUM COMPOUNDS