Atomic and itinerant effects at the transition metal x-ray absorption K-pre-edge exemplified in the case of V$_2$O$_3$

TL;DR

This paper investigates the quadrupolar 1s to 3d transitions at the vanadium K-pre-edge in V2O3 using high-resolution X-ray absorption spectroscopy, combining experimental data with advanced theoretical calculations to understand orbital and spin effects.

Contribution

It provides a combined experimental and theoretical analysis of quadrupolar transitions at the V K-pre-edge, revealing insights into orbital degrees of freedom and onsite mixing effects.

Findings

Quadrupolar transitions carry valuable information about orbital states.

Onsite mixing of 3d and 4p states affects transition features.

Theoretical models successfully interpret experimental spectra.

Abstract

X-ray absorption spectroscopy is a well established tool for obtaining information about orbital and spin degrees of freedom in transition metal- and rare earth-compounds. For this purpose usually the dipole transitions of the L- (2p to 3d) and M- (3d to 4f) edges are employed, whereas higher order transitions such as quadrupolar 1s to 3d in the K-edge are rarely studied in that respect. This is due to the fact that usually such quadrupolar transitions are overshadowed by dipole allowed 1s to 4p transitions and, hence, are visible only as minor features in the pre-edge region. Nonetheless, these features carry a lot of valuable information, similar to the dipole L-edge transition, which is not accessible in experiments under pressure due to the absorption of the diamond anvil pressurecell. We recently performed a theoretical and experimental analysis of such a situation for the metal insulator transition of (V(1-x)Crx)2O3. Since the importance of the orbital degrees of freedom in this transition is widely accepted, a thorough understanding of quadrupole transitions of the vanadium K-pre-edge provides crucial information about the underlying physics. Moreover, the lack of inversion symetry at the vanadium site leads to onsite mixing of vanadium 3d- and 4p- states and related quantum mechanical interferences between dipole and quadrupole transitions. Here we present a theoretical analysis of experimental high resolution x-ray absorption spectroscopy at the V pre-K edge measured in partial fluorescence yield mode for single crystals. We carried out density functional as well as configuration interaction calculations in order to capture effects coming from both, itinerant and atomic limits.