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The effect of Sr vacancies on the behavior of strontium titanate with trivalent dopants (La3+, Gd3+, and Y3+) substituting Sr2+ ions is reported. A remarkable shift of the antiferrodistortive transition temperature Ta is revealed by Raman spectroscopy for just a small content of dopant. It is shown that a unique linear dependence of Ta versus tolerance factor is obtained when Sr-vacancies are taken into account. A vacancy size value of ∼1.54 Å is estimated, which is ∼7% larger than Sr2+ radius. This size difference enables explaining the unexpected increase of lattice parameter with increasing Bi3+ content in Sr1-1.5xBixTiO3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Inelastic light scattering is used to study lattice dynamics of strontium titanate (STO) ceramics with several heterovalent dopants (La3+, Gd3+, Y3+), which substitute Sr2+ ions. An extraordinary shift of the antiferrodistortive transition temperature (T a) is ascertained when just a small percentage of any of the dopants is used. T a is dependent on the tolerance factor (t). In this work, it is clearly shown that, regardless of the dopant used, a common linear dependence of T a vs. t is obtained if strontium vacancies are taken into account. A vacancy size of ∼1.547Å was estimated, which is ∼7% larger than the Sr2+ radius. The vacancy size obtained can directly explain the increase in lattice parameter with increasing Bi3+ content in Bi-doped STO, as opposed to the dopants referred to above. Furthermore, the introduction of La3+, Gd3+ or Y3+ ions at the Sr site causes a considerable stiffening of the transverse optic TO1 mode at low temperatures, thereby decreasing the phonon contribution to the dielectric permittivity. Thus, no traces of a ferroelectric phase are found for any of the dopants used in this work. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The effect of Sr vacancies on the behavior of strontium titanate with trivalent dopants (La3+, Gd3+, and Y3+) substituting Sr2+ ions is reported. A remarkable shift of the antiferrodistortive transition temperature Ta is revealed by Raman spectroscopy for just a small content of dopant. It is shown that a unique linear dependence of Ta versus tolerance factor is obtained when Sr-vacancies are taken into account. A vacancy size value of ∼1.54 Å is estimated, which is ∼7% larger than Sr2+ radius. This size difference enables explaining the unexpected increase of lattice parameter with increasing Bi3+ content in Sr1-1.5xBixTiO3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]