Orbital superexchange and crystal field simultaneously at play in YVO3: resonant inelastic x-ray scattering at the V L edge and the O K edge

TL;DR

This study uses resonant inelastic x-ray scattering to observe and analyze orbital excitations in YVO3, revealing the interplay of superexchange interactions and lattice coupling in these excitations.

Contribution

First detailed RIXS investigation of orbital excitations in YVO3 across multiple edges, highlighting the simultaneous influence of superexchange and crystal field effects.

Findings

Resolved intra-t2g excitations with high energy resolution.

Observed finite dispersion of orbital excitations.

Detected two-orbiton scattering indicative of intersite orbital exchange.

Abstract

We report on the observation of orbital excitations in YVO3 by means of resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) at energies across the vanadium L3 and oxygen K absorption edges. Due to the excellent experimental resolution we are able to resolve the intra-t2g excitations at 0.1-0.2 eV, 1.07 eV, and 1.28 eV, the lowest excitations from the t2g into the eg levels at 1.86 eV, and further excitations above 2.2 eV. For the intra-t2g excitations at 0.1-0.2 eV, the RIXS peaks show small shifts of the order of 10-40 meV as a function of temperature and of about 13-20 meV as a function of the transferred momentum q||a. We argue that the latter reflects a finite dispersion of the orbital excitations. For incident energies tuned to the oxygen K edge, RIXS is more sensitive to intersite excitations. We observe excitations across the Mott-Hubbard gap and find an additional feature at 0.4 eV which we attribute to two-orbiton scattering, i.e., an exchange of orbitals between adjacent sites. Altogether, these results indicate that both superexchange interactions and the coupling to the lattice are important for a quantitative understanding of the orbital excitations in YVO3.