Abstract
We have investigated the temperature variation of the unit-cell volume of by neutron diffraction. The lattice parameter and the unit-cell volume decrease continuously as the temperature is increased from to about . After exhibiting minima at about 200 K they increase with increasing temperature linearly up to about 305 K, the maximum temperature investigated during the present experiment. We attribute the negative thermal expansion of to be the results of rigid antiphase rotations of the neighboring octahedra. We have done model lattice dynamical calculation of phonon dispersions, thermal expansion, and atomic displacement parameters in . The results of these calculations are in agreement with the experimental results.
1 More- Received 30 May 2008
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.78.134105
©2008 American Physical Society