Valence control of charge and orbital frustrated system YbFeO with electrochemical Li intercalation

Murase, Satoshi*; Yoshikawa, Yumi*; Fujiwara, Kosuke*; Fukada, Yukimasa*; Teranishi, Takashi*; Kano, Jun*; Fujii, Tatsuo*; Inada, Yasuhiro*; Katayama, Misaki*; Yoshii, Kenji  ; Tsuji, Takuya  ; Matsumura, Daiju   ; Ikeda, Naoshi*

We report a trial of the valence control for mixed valence iron triangular oxide YbFeO in order to develop an effective technique to control the frustration of charges in strongly correlated electron systems. The electro-chemical doping of Li into YbFeO was examined on the cell type sample similar to the Li-ion secondary battery cell. Systematic change of the lattice constant, Fe-Fe and Fe-Yb distance were observed with Li doping. Maximum value of the doping was over 300 mAh/g. An EXAFS experiment indicated that Li positioned between Yb octahedron layer (U-layer) and Fe-bipyramidal layer (W-layer). However, detailed change of iron valence state of YbFeO was not clearly observed because of the superimpose of the signal from iron metal nano particles in XANES observation. The results indicate that the electrochemical method might be one of the potential technique to control the frustration of charges in YbFeO.