Acceptor-oxygen vacancy defect dipoles and fully coordinated defect centers in a ferroelectric perovskite lattice: Electron paramagnetic resonance analysis of Mn2+ in single crystal BaTiO3

Abstract

Defect dipoles are significant point defects in perovskite oxides as a result of their impact on oxygen vacancy dynamics. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) was used to investigate the local defect structure of single crystal BaTiO3 doped with manganese. These results, along with a re-analysis of literature data, do not support the conclusion that transition metal-oxygen vacancy nearest neighbor defect dipoles (MnTi″−VO••)× in ferroelectric BaTiO3 are majority defect centers as previously reported. Local symmetry analysis of the zero-field splitting term of the spin Hamiltonian supports the assignment of fully coordinated defect centers as opposed to defect dipoles for resonance signals at geff ∼ 2. A newly discovered defect center with g⊥ ∼ 6 is observed in the manganese doped system, and it is argued that this defect center belongs to an associated defect complex or defect dipole. This newly reported strong axial defect center, however, is present in small, minor concentrations compared to the well-known Mn2+ center with zero-field splitting of D ∼ 645 MHz. In regard to relative concentration, it is concluded that the dominant point defect related to the Mn2+ ion doped in BaTiO3 corresponds to B-site substitution with six nearest neighbor anions in octahedral coordination.