Magnetic and structural studies of Sc containing ruthenate double perovskites A2ScRuO6 (A = Ba, Sr)

Ruthenium containing double perovskites A2ScRuO6 have been synthesized as polycrystalline powders and structurally characterized using a combination of synchrotron X-ray and neutron powder diffraction methods. When A = Ba a hexagonal 6L perovskite structure is obtained if the synthesis is conducted at ambient pressure and a rock-salt ordered cubic structure obtained if the sample is quenched from high pressures. The Sr oxide Sr2ScRuO6 is obtained with a rock-salt ordered corner sharing topology. Heat capacity and bulk magnetic susceptibility measurements show the three oxides are antiferromagnets. Cubic Ba2ScRuO6 undergoes a metal-insulator transition near 270 K and hexagonal Ba2ScRuO6 is a semiconductor with an activation energy of 0.207 eV. The magnetic structures of the two rock-salt ordered double perovskites were established using powder neutron diffraction, and are described by k = (001) and k = (000) for the Ba and Sr oxides respectively, corresponding to type I antiferromagnetic structures, with ferromagnetic layers stacked antiferromagnetically. The ambient pressure hexagonal polymorph of Ba2ScRuO6 has partial Sc-Ru ordering at both the face-sharing B2O9 dimer and corner sharing BO6 sites. The magnetic structure is described by k = (½ 0 0) with the basis vector belonging to the irreducible representation Γ3. Australian Synchrotron Australian Research Council