ELNES investigations of the structure and electronic properties of chromium spinels

Abstract

A series of spinels have been studied to investigate the influence of the occupation of d orbitals on the energy loss near edge structure (ELNES). In this paper the oxygen K edges from a variety of chromium spinels and magnesium aluminate are presented. Extra fine structure is observed from compounds containing transition metals with partially filled d orbitals. This is assigned to transitions to states created by hybridisation of the oxygen 2p and transition metal 3d orbitals at the bottom of the conduction band.