Charge-orbital ordering of magnetite studied by soft resonant X-ray scattering

Abstract

We report direct experimental evidence for the existence of charge and orbital ordering in magnetite. In particular, measurements of oxygen K-edge resonant X-ray scattering on magnetite reveal that the oxygen 2p states in the vicinity of the Fermi level exhibit a charge-orbital ordering with a spatial periodicity of the doubled lattice parameter of the undistorted cubic phase. (c) 2006 Published by Elsevier B.V.