Abstract and subjects
Understanding the nature of covalent (band-like) vs ionic (atomic-like) electrons in metal oxides continues to be at the forefront of research in the physical sciences. In particular, the development of a coherent and quantitative model of bonding and electronic structure for the lanthanide dioxides, LnO(2) (Ln = Ce, Pr, and Tb), has remained a considerable challenge for both experiment and theory. Herein, relative changes in mixing between the O 2p orbitals and the Ln 4f and 5d orbitals in LnO(2) are evaluated quantitatively using O K-edge X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) obtained with a scanning transmission X-ray microscope and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. For each LnO(2), the results reveal significant amounts of Ln 5d and O 2p mixing in the orbitals of t(2)g (sigma-bonding) and e(g) (pi-bonding) symmetry. The remarkable agreement between experiment and theory also shows that significant mixing with the O 2p orbitals occurs in a band derived from the 4f orbitals of a(2u) symmetry (sigma-bonding) for each compound. However, a large increase in orbital mixing is observed for PrO2 that is ascribed to a unique interaction derived from the 4f orbitals of t(1u) symmetry (sigma- and pi-bonding). O K-edge XAS and DFT results are compared with complementary L-3-edge and M-5,M-4-edge XAS measurements and configuration interaction calculations, which shows that each spectroscopic approach provides evidence for ground state O 2p and Ln 4f orbital mixing despite inducing very different core-hole potentials in the final state.