Direct experimental evidence of hybridization of Pb states with O 2p states in ferroelectric perovskite oxides

Abstract

This work presents the O K- and Ti L-3,L-2-edge x-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) spectra of PbxSr1-xTiO3 (PxSTO) and BaxSr1-xTiO3 (BxSTO) compounds with various Pb and Ba concentrations. The result provides direct evidence that the Pb-O bonding strongly affects O 2p-Ti 3d hybridization in the TiO6 octahedron of PxSTO. In contrast, the Ba-O bonding does not substantially affect O 2p-Ti 3d hybridization in BxSTO. The Ti L-3-edge XANES spectra show the splitting of the e(g) band for PxSTO with x greater than or similar to 0.5, which provides an evidence of Pb-induced tetragonal distortion in the TiO6 octahedron. In contrast, e(g) band splitting is absent in BxSTO. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.