Orbital polarization of LaSrMnO4 studied by soft X-ray linear dichroism

Abstract

With polarization-dependent soft X-ray absorption, we determined the orbital character of occupied and the lowest unoccupied e, orbitals of prototype single-layered perovskite LaSrMnO4, Our measurements indicate that LaSrMnO4 exhibits strong orbital polarization in the e, states of Mn3+ sites, leading us to conclude that LaSrMnO4 has a "ferro-orbital" ordering of 3z(2)-r(2). We found that linear dichroism in soft X-ray absorption is an effective experimental method to identify the nature of orbital ordering in transition-metal oxides such as manganites. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.