Observation of all-in type tetrahedral displacements in nonmagnetic pyrochlore niobates

鳥越 秀平*; 石本 祐太朗*; 青石 優平*; 村川 寛*; 松村 大樹; 吉井 賢資; 米田 安宏; 西畑 保雄; 樹神 克明; 富安 啓輔*; et al.

Physical Review B, 93(8), p.085109_1 - 085109_5, 2016/02

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.93.085109

We observed all-in type Nb tetrahedral displacement in nonmagnetic pyrochlore niobates ANbO (A = NdCa and YCa) through the analysis of the neutron pair distribution function and the extended X-ray absorption function spectroscopy. The all-in type Nb tetrahedral displacement, which has the character of a charge singlet state, is driven by the formation of the bonding orbital. The diffuse scattering in the X-ray diffraction, which has the resonant component in the Nb 3 edge, indicates that the all-in type Nb tetrahedral displacement has the periodicity with its short-range correlation.