Spectroscopic studies of Ti3+ ions speciation inside MgAl2O4 spinels

Pierre Lombard (1) , Bruno Boizot (1) , Nadège Ollier (1) , Anis Jouini , Akira Yoshikawa (2)

1 LSI - Laboratoire des Solides Irradiés
2 IMRAM - Institute for Multidisciplinary Research on Advanced Materials

An electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) investigation on Ti-doped MgAl2O4 spinels has been made in order to study the Ti3+ sites. The study we present here concerns the angular dependencies of the Ti3+ EPR lines and the variations of the EPR spectra due to a modificatino of the TiO2 content or of the chemical composition from MgAl2O4 to MgAl4O7 and MgAl6O10. In all the studied samples except one, we observe the presence of both Mn2+ and Ti3+ ions. No correlation was observed between Ti3+ amount and TiO2 content; The titanium ions are located in three different sites: the octahdral B site of the spinel structure; the tetrahedral A site and a last site which remains unclear. On the contrary, the major part of the Mn2+ ions is assumed to be in the tetrahedral A site of the spinel structure and a minor part in the octahedral B site. Our work demonstrates the overall interest of EPR spectroscopy in the study of the paramagnetic optically active ions inside optical materials.

Domains: Materials Science [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

Pierre Lombard, Bruno Boizot, Nadège Ollier, Anis Jouini, Akira Yoshikawa. Spectroscopic studies of Ti3+ ions speciation inside MgAl2O4 spinels. Journal of Crystal Growth, 2008, 311, pp.899-903. ⟨10.1016/j.jcrysgro.2008.09.131⟩. ⟨hal-00488410⟩