At room-temperature NaV2O5 was found to have the centrosymmetric space group Pmmn. This space group implies the presence of only one kind of V site in contrast with previous reports of the non-centrosymmetric counterpart P21mn. This indicates a non-integer valence state of vanadium. Furthermore, this symmetry has consequences for the interpretation of the transition at 34 K, which was ascribed to a spin-Peierls transition of one dimensional chains of V4+.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9806081,
title = {Inversion symmetry in the spin-Peierls compound NaV2O5},
author = {A. Meetsma and J. L. de Boer and A. Damascelli and J. Jegoudez and A. Revcolevschi and T. T. M. Palstra},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9806081},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
Revtex, 3 pages, 2 postscript pictures embedded in the text. Corrected a mistake in one picture