Electronic structure, bonding and dichroism in rutile compounds : an X-ray spectroscopic study

Abstract

Rutile-type transition-metal compounds are a continually rewarding area of research, of both technological and fundamental importance due to their exhibiting a wide variety of physical properties, lending to numerous potential applications. They range from wide bandgap insulators such as MgF2 and TiO2, to semiconducting SnO2, metallic IrO2, and compounds like VO2 and NbO2 which undergo a temperature dependent metal-to-insulator transition. These crystals straddle the boundary between ionic and covalent bonding, exhibiting an anisotropy in their orbital overlapping, and thus electronic structure and hybridisation which has not been fully explored.