Interplay of inequivalent atomic positions in resonant x-ray diffraction of Fe3BO6

Guillaume Beutier (1) , E.N. Ovchinnikova (2) , S. P. Collins (3) , Vladimir-E. Dmitrienko (4) , José-Emilio Lorenzo (5) , Jean-Louis Hodeau (6) , A. Kirfel (7) , Yves Joly (8) , A. A. Antonenko (2) , V. A. Sarkisyan (4) , A. Bombardi (3)

1 Diamond
2 Faculty of Physics [MSU, Moscow]
3 DIAMOND Light source
4 IC RAS - A. V. Shubnikov Institute of Crystallography
5 NEEL - MagSup - Magnétisme et Supraconductivité
6 NEEL - MRS - Matériaux, Rayonnements, Structure
7 Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
8 NEEL - SIN - Surfaces, Interfaces et Nanostructures

'Forbidden' Bragg reflections of iron orthoborate Fe3BO6 were studied theoretically and experimentally in the vicinity of the iron K edge. Their energy spectra are explained as resulting from the interference of x-rays scattered from two inequivalent crystallographic sites occupied by iron ions. This particular structure property gives rise to complex azimuthal dependences of the reflection intensities in the pre-edge region as they result from the interplay of site specific dipole-quadrupole and quadrupole-quadrupole resonant scattering. Also evidenced is an anisotropic character of the absorption spectrum. Self-absorption correction to the diffraction data, as well as possible contributions of thermal vibrations and magnetic order, are discussed. Particular care is given to extracting clean spectra from the data, and it is demonstrated that excellent results can be obtained even from measurements that appear corrupted by several effects such as poor crystal quality and multiple scattering.

Mots clés: resonant x-ray diffraction; Fe3BO6

Domaines: Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

Guillaume Beutier, E.N. Ovchinnikova, S. P. Collins, Vladimir-E. Dmitrienko, José-Emilio Lorenzo, et al.. Interplay of inequivalent atomic positions in resonant x-ray diffraction of Fe3BO6. Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 2009, 21, pp.265402. ⟨10.1088/0953-8984/21/26/265402⟩. ⟨hal-00687306⟩