Far-infrared absorption of MgO: Fe2+ in magnetic fields

We have measured the far-infrared absorption of iron-doped MgO in the wavenumber region 10–200 cm^?1 and in magnetic fields up to 6 T. Absorption peaks found at 107.0 and 110.5 cm^?1 are assigned to magnetic dipole transitions between the spin-orbit Г_5g groundstate (J = 1) and the Г_3g, Г_4g excited states (J = 2) of the Fe²⁺ -ion at a cubic site. The observed magnetic field dependence shows that Г_4g is the higher excited level, so that the crystal field order of the levels is not changed by the reduction of the spin-orbit splitting attributed to a dynamic Jahn-Teller effect. An additional absorption peak at 33.4 cm^?1 is found to split in magnetic field.In iron-doped KMgF₃ absorption peaks at 52 and 87 cm^?1 that have previously been attributed to the same transitions of Fe²⁺ are found to remain unshifted and unsplit in magnetic fields up to 6 T.