Lattice dynamics of multiferroic BiFeO 3 studied by inelastic x-ray scattering

Elena Borissenko (1) , Marco Goffinet (2) , Alexei Bosak (1) , Pauline Rovillain (3, 4) , Maximilien Cazayous (5) , Dorothée Colson (6) , Philippe Ghosez (7) , Michael Krisch (1)

1 ESRF - European Synchrotron Radiation Facility
2 CPTP - Centre de Physiopathologie Toulouse Purpan
3 INSP - Institut des Nanosciences de Paris
4 INSP-E3 - Acoustique pour les nanosciences
5 MPQ (UMR_7162) - Laboratoire Matériaux et Phénomènes Quantiques
6 LNO - Laboratoire Nano-Magnétisme et Oxydes
7 Université de Liège

We report an experimental study of the phonon dispersion in BiFeO(3) single crystals at ambient conditions by inelastic x-ray scattering (IXS). The phonon dispersions were recorded along several symmetry directions up to 35 meV. Our results compare favorably with first-principles calculations performed using density functional theory (DFT) within the local-density approximation (LDA). We resolve a discrepancy concerning the symmetry of the optical phonon branches observed by Raman spectroscopy, determine the energy of the lowest Raman and infrared silent mode, and derive a subset of the elastic moduli of BiFeO(3).

Domains: Physics [physics]

Elena Borissenko, Marco Goffinet, Alexei Bosak, Pauline Rovillain, Maximilien Cazayous, et al.. Lattice dynamics of multiferroic BiFeO 3 studied by inelastic x-ray scattering. Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 2013, 25 (10), pp.102201 ⟨10.1088/0953-8984/25/10/102201⟩. ⟨cea-01478932⟩