Correlation effects among thermal displacements of atoms in VSe by diffuse neutron scattering measurement

Abstract

Neutron diffraction measurements have been performed on powder VSe at 294 K. The diffuse scattering theory including correlation effects among thermal displacements of atoms is applied to background function in the Rietveld analysis. The oscillatory scheme of the diffuse scattering intensity from hexagonal VSe is explained by the correlation effects among far-neighboring Se–Se atoms. The values of the correlation effects depend on the inter-atomic distance and not on the crystal structure. The relation between correlation effects and force constants is discussed.