Orbital fluctuations and orbital flipping in RVO3 perovskites

Phys Rev Lett. 2007 Nov 9;99(19):197201. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.197201. Epub 2007 Nov 8.

Abstract

The effect of the average R-site ionic radius IR and variance on the orbital and magnetic order in R3+-doped YVO3 was studied in Y1-xLaxVO3 and Y1-x(La0.2337Lu0.7663)xVO3 with fixed IR. The orbital flipping temperature T{CG} increases nonlinearly with increasing R-site variance, indicating that the V-O-V bond angle is not the primary driving force stabilizing the C-type orbitally ordered phase. The suppressed thermal conductivity in the G-type orbitally ordered phase signals some remaining orbital randomness that is enhanced by t{2} and et hybridization in {3}T{1g} site symmetry.