A Neutron Diffraction Study of the Thermal Stability of the ALPHA-Quartz-Type Structure in Germanium Dioxide

The electronic and physical properties of Cu2.33V4O11 were characterized by electrical resistivity, magnetic susceptibility and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements and by tight-binding electronic band structure calculations. Attempts to prepare Cu2.33-xV4O11 outside its narrow homogeneity range led to a mixture of Cu2.33V4O11, CuVO3 and BETA-CuxV2O5. The magnetic susceptibility data show no evidence for a magnetic/structural transition around 300 K. The XPS spectra of Cu2.33V4O11 reveal the presence of mixed valence in both Cu and V. The [Cu+]/[Cu2+] ratio is estimated to be 1.11 from the Cu 2p3/2 peak areas, so [V4+]/[V5+]=0.56 by the charge balance. Our electronic structure calculations suggest that the oxidation state of the Cu ions is +2 in the channels of CuO4 tetrahedra, and +1 in the channels of linear CuO2 and trigonal planar CuO3 units. This predicts that [Cu+]/[Cu2+]=1.33 and [V4+]/[V5+]=0.50, in good agreement with those deduced from the XPS study.