1. Charge localization and magnetic correlations in the refined structure of U3O7
- Author
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Rolando Saniz, Gregory Leinders, Gianguido Baldinozzi, Marc Verwerft, Dirk Lamoen, Ine Arts, Clemens Ritter, Centre d'Etude de l'Energie Nucléaire (SCK-CEN), Laboratoire Structures, Propriétés et Modélisation des solides (SPMS), Institut de Chimie du CNRS (INC)-CentraleSupélec-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL), ILL, University of Antwerp (UA), and This work was granted access to the HPC resources of IDRIS under the allocation 2020-101450 and 2020-101601 made by GENCI.
- Subjects
Valence (chemistry) ,Magnetic moment ,010405 organic chemistry ,Chemistry ,Band gap ,Mott insulator ,chemistry.chemical_element ,Uranium Oxides ,Primitive cell ,Electronic structure ,[CHIM.MATE]Chemical Sciences/Material chemistry ,Uranium ,010402 general chemistry ,01 natural sciences ,Molecular physics ,0104 chemical sciences ,Inorganic Chemistry ,[CHIM.THEO]Chemical Sciences/Theoretical and/or physical chemistry ,[PHYS.COND.CM-MS]Physics [physics]/Condensed Matter [cond-mat]/Materials Science [cond-mat.mtrl-sci] ,[CHIM.CRIS]Chemical Sciences/Cristallography ,Diamagnetism ,Physical and Theoretical Chemistry ,[PHYS.COND.CM-SCE]Physics [physics]/Condensed Matter [cond-mat]/Strongly Correlated Electrons [cond-mat.str-el] - Abstract
Supporting Information is available free of charge at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.inorgchem.1c01212; International audience; Atomic arrangements in the mixed-valence oxide U3O7 are refined from high-resolution neutron scattering data. The crystallographic model describes a long-range structural order in a U60O140 primitive cell (space group P42/n) containing distorted cuboctahedral oxygen clusters. By combining experimental data and electronic structure calculations accounting for spin−orbit interactions, we provide robust evidence of an interplay between charge localization and the magnetic moments carried by the uranium atoms. The calculations predict U3O7 to be a semiconducting solid with a band gap of close to 0.32 eV, and a more pronounced charge-transfer insulator behavior as compared to the well-known Mott insulator UO2. Most uranium ions (56 out of 60) occur in 9-fold and 10-fold coordinated environments, surrounding the oxygen clusters, and have a tetravalent (24 out of 60) or pentavalent (32 out of 60) state. The remaining uranium ions (4 out of 60) are not contiguous to the oxygen cuboctahedra and have a very compact, 8-fold coordinated environment with two short (2 × 1.93(3) Å) “oxo-type” bonds. The higher Hirshfeld charge and the diamagnetic character point to a hexavalent state for these four uranium ions. Hence, the valence state distribution corresponds to 24/60 × U(IV) + 32/60 U(V) + 4/60 U(VI). The tetravalent and pentavalent uranium ions are predicted to carry noncollinear magnetic moments (with amplitudes of 1.6 and 0.8 μB, respectively), resulting in canted ferromagnetic order in characteristic layers within the overall fluorite-related structure.
- Published
- 2021
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