Investigations of certain novel aspects of the structure and properties of transition metal oxides

Abstract

Transition metal oxides constitute one of the most important classes of solids, exhibiting a wide range of structures and fascinating properties originating from a strong coupling among spin, orbital, charge and lattice degrees of freedom. Here, we discuss the intriguing aspects of strong electron correlation effect and orbital degrees of freedom in transition metal oxides. The strong interactions among valence electrons lead to localization of electrons in the d-orbital, while the orbital degree of freedom gives rise to anisotropy in the electronic interactions. A description has been given of the magnetic exchange interaction and anisotropy which is essential to understand the magnetic properties of various oxides. The cross coupling between magnetism and electricity known as the magnetoelectric effect is another important property exhibited by transition metal oxides which has been explored. In addition, a brief discussion on the diffraction techniques essential to study the variety of crystal and magnetic structures are presented. Finally, we discuss the experimental techniques employed to study the magnetic and dielectric properties of various oxides.