2014/08/01 by Craig A. Scurti, N. Auvray, Michael W. Lufaso +3 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · Materials Science · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Crystal Structures and Properties #Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials
paper · doi:10.1063/1.4893341
openalex publication_date 2014/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
We present an electron diffraction study of three sillenites, Bi12SiO20, Bi25FeO39, and Bi25InO39 synthesized using the solid-state method. We explore a hypothesis, inspired by optical studies in the literature, that suggests that trivalent sillenites have additional disorder not present in the tetravalent compounds. Electron diffraction patterns of Bi25FeO39 and Bi25InO39 show streaks that confirm deviations from the ideal sillenite structure. Multi-slice simulations of electron-diffraction patterns are presented for different perturbations to the sillenite structure - partial substitution of the M site by Bi3+, random and ordered oxygen-vacancies, and a frozen-phonon model. Although comparison of experimental data to simulations cannot be conclusive, we consider the streaks as evidence of short-range ordered oxygen-vacancies.