Effect of uniaxial pressure on the Raman spectra of fluoro perovskites containing manganese with sodium or potassium

ABSTRACT

Perovskite structured mixed metal fluorides containing manganese/sodium or potassium have been synthesized in pure form by a greener precipitation route and characterized by high-resolution powder X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy techniques. While all the reflections in the powder X-ray diffraction pattern of potassium manganese fluoride could be indexed in cubic symmetry with a = 4.1889 Å, sodium manganese fluoride showed reflections at positions typical of orthorhombic symmetry (Pnma space group) with a = 5.751, b = 8.008, and c = 5.548 Å. Potassium manganese fluoride in powder form showed bands at 209, 291, 386, 558, 621, and 733 cm^?1 in the Raman spectrum at room temperature. All these bands disappeared and second-order band at 1151 and 1298 cm^?1 emerged when the powders were compacted under pressure ranging between 1 and 4 tons (uniaxial). A similar change was noticed for sodium manganese fluoride in which bands at 1099, 1149, 1203, and 1286 cm^?1 were observed for the compacted samples. The response of the vibrational modes of these compounds to uniaxial pressure revealed the existence of large structural disorder in them. Additionally, the need for the extreme care to collect and interpret Raman data of polycrystalline samples of these systems has been illustrated through this study.