Unraveling orbital ordering in La0.5Sr1.5MnO4

Phys Rev Lett. 2004 Feb 6;92(5):056403. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.056403. Epub 2004 Feb 5.

Abstract

Orbital ordering (OO) in the layered perovskite La0.5Sr1.5MnO4 has been investigated using the enhanced sensitivity of soft x-ray resonant diffraction at the Mn L edges. The energy dependence of an OO diffraction peak over the L(2,3) edges is compared to ligand-field calculations allowing a distinction between the influences of Jahn-Teller distortions and spin correlations. The energy dependence of the diffraction peak at the Mn L1 edge is remarkably different from that observed at the Mn K edge.