X-ray diffraction, dynamical mechanical analysis and infrared reflectivity studies revealed an antiferrodistortive phase transition in EuTiO3 ceramics. Near 300K the perovskite structure changes from cubic Pm-3m to tetragonal I4/mcm due to antiphase tilting of oxygen octahedra along the c axis (a0a0c- in Glazer notation). The phase transition is analogous to SrTiO3. However, some ceramics as well as single crystals of EuTiO3 show different infrared reflectivity spectra bringing evidence of a different crystal structure. In such samples electron diffraction revealed an incommensurate tetragonal structure with modulation wavevector q ~ 0.38 a*. Extra phonons in samples with modulated structure are activated in the IR spectra due to folding of the Brillouin zone. We propose that defects like Eu3+ and oxygen vacancies strongly influence the temperature of the phase transition to antiferrodistortive phase as well as the tendency to incommensurate modulation in EuTiO3.
@article{arxiv.1206.4137,
title = {Antiferrodistortive phase transition in EuTiO3},
author = {V. Goian and S. Kamba and O. Pacherova and J. Drahokoupil and L. Palatinus and M. Dusek and J. Rohlicek and M. Savinov and F. Laufek and W. Schranz and A. Fuith and M. Kachlik and K. Maca and A. Shkabko and L. Sagarna and A. Weidenkaff and A. A. Belik},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1206.4137},
year = {2015}
}