We investigate the detailed electronic structure of PrCoO3 and its temperature evolution using state-of-the-art photoemission spectroscopy and ab initio band structure calculations. We observe that in addition to the correlation effect, spin-orbit interaction plays an important role in determining the electronic properties of this system. Pr 4f states are found to be strongly hybridized with the O 2p and Co 3d valence electronic states, and thus influences the electronic properties significantly. The calculated results corresponding to the intermediate spin state of Co provide a good description of the experimental spectra at 300 K. The decrease in temperature from 300 K leads to a gradual enhancement of the low spin state contributions in the electronic structure. The temperature evolution of the band gap is found to be consistent with the transport data.
@article{arxiv.0711.1020,
title = {Electronic structure of PrCoO_3 and its temperature evolution},
author = {S. K. Pandey and Swapnil Patil and V. R. R. Medicherla and R. S. Singh and Kalobaran Maiti},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0711.1020},
year = {2009}
}