Abstract
Structural, magnetic, and Mn K-edge X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) spectroscopic studies have been done on the stoichiometric, hexagonal Sc 1-x Lu x MnO 3 (0 ≤ x ≤ 1) system. The identical main threshold edge energy E 0 of 6545 eV indicates trivalent Mn 3+ for all samples. The triangular antiferromagnetic (AF) Néel temperature T N decreases monotonically, from 133 K for ScMnO 3 to 112 K for Sc 0.5 Lu 0.5 MnO 3 and 92 K for LuMnO 3 , due to decreasing d-p hybridization in the trigonal MnO 5 block. Complex low temperature spin reorientations are observed for all samples. The K pre-edge features, with an energy separation ΔE(P 2 -P 1 ) of 2.27 eV for ScMnO 3 and 2.31 eV for LuMnO 3 , are associated with the 1s-3d quadrupole transition, which is weakly allowed through the hybridization of Mn 4p with the 3d states of neighboring Mn atoms. The P 1 peak corresponds to a transition to the e′ and e″ minority spin states in the MnO 5 crystal field, with the smaller P 2 corresponding to the leftover e′ minority spin states.