Fe-site assignments in Y1Ba2Cu3O7 revisited

A new symmetric Fe³⁺ site (labelled E) (δ=0.28(2) mm/s and Δ=0.15 mm/s) is observed in the R₁Ba₂Cu₃O₇ family of superconductors for R=Y and Eu. The decay and growth of site E are established in two seemingly unrelated experiments, one as a function of room temperature aging for R=Y, and the other as a function of oxygen loading at elevated temperatures and pressures for R=Eu. In each experiment, the results show that site E is genetically related to the well documented chainsites A(Δ=1.9 mm/s), C(Δ=1.1 mm/s) and D(Δ=1.6 mm/s). We propose that site E represents a quasi-octahedral chain-site having pairs of O(1), O(4) and O(5) nearestneighbor oxygen sites. The two remaining doublets, B(Δ≈0.4 mm/s) and B′(Δ=0.78 mm/s) represent Fe³⁺ dopant sites present in the all-important CuO₂ planes, possessing coordination numbers of 6 and 5, respectively.