Electronic and magnetic nature of shandite-type A2Co3S2

Abstract: We investigated electronic and magnetic nature of A2Co3S2 to reveal two different characteristics of metallic Co–Sn and strongly correlated electronic Co–S bondings. Co 2p X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) shows a complicated and mixed-valence like feature with strong satellite. This origin can be explained by two different characteristics of Co–Sn/Co–S bonding nature. This feature is consistent with characteristic electron-density distributions obtained by the maximum-entropy method (MEM)-based pattern fitting analysis and the band calculation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]