Atomic and electronic structures of lutetium oxide Lu2O3

The chemical composition, electronic structure, structure, and physical properties a lutetium oxide Lu₂O₃ film are studied by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, ellipsometry, and X-ray absorption spectroscopy. The short-range order in Lu₂O₃ is found to correspond to its cubic modification. The binding energies of the 1s and 2p levels of oxygen and the 4d _5/2 and 4f _7/2 levels of lutetium are 529.2, 5.0 and 7.4, 195.9 eV, respectively. The energy gap determined from the electron energy loss spectrum of the film is 5.9 eV. The electron energy loss spectra have two peaks at 17.4 and 22.0 eV, which can be attributed to the excitation of bulk plasma oscillations. The dispersion of the refractive index is measured by spectral ellipsometry. The refractive index is shown to increase from 1.82 at 1.5 eV to 2.18 at 5.0 eV, and the high-frequency permittivity of Lu₂O₃ is 3.31.