Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 036403 (2005) [4 pages]Local Distortion Induced Metal-to-Insulator Phase Transition in PrRu4P12Received 31 August 2004; published 24 January 2005 Extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) experiments have been carried out on PrRu4P12 and PrOs4P12 to study the metal-to-insulator (MI) phase transition in PrRu4P12. No Pr displacement was observed across the MI transition temperature from the EXAFS data. Instead, our EXAFS data clearly show that a Ru displacement is associated with this MI transition. The very high Debye temperature for the Ru-P bond (ΘD=690 K) suggests that a slight rotation/displacement of relatively rigid RuP6 octahedra leads to this small Ru displacement, which accompanies the MI transition at 62 K in PrRu4P12. © 2005 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.036403
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.036403
PACS:
71.30.+h, 61.10.Ht
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