Giant Quenching of Spin-Orbit Interaction of Ga1-xVxP Crystals

We prove the presence of a giant quenching of the spin-orbit coupling of V^2 ion in GaP on the basis of a trigonal crystal field model and a complete diagonalization procedure. The calculated result is in good agreement with the experimental data of the thermally detected electron paramagnetic resonance. It was also shown that the dynamical Jalm-Teller explanation cannot be excluded.