Impact of disorder on ionic charge in spinel compounds

In order to obtain a correlation between the ionic charge and the local environment, the evolution of valence charges of cations in different 2-3 spinel compounds was investigated as a function of the temperature. The evolution of the structural parameters in normal (MgAl2O4), mixed (MgGa2O4) and inverse (MgIn2O4) spinels as a function of the temperature was extracted from X-ray diffraction patterns collected during different thermal annealings. The evolution of these structural parameters as a function of the disorder is analyzed within the bond valence shell model: large variations of the cation valence are observed in these three spinel compounds. From this analysis, a strong correlation between the change of the cation valence and the local disorder is pointed out. Including this dependence in the microscopic models may provide a better agreement between experimental observations and simulations.