Low-temperature structural behaviour of LaCoO3 – A high-resolution neutron study

We present the temperature evolution of the crystallographic structure of LaCoO3 in the range 4–300 K. We observe no anomalies in the rhombohedral unit cell parameters at temperatures where electronic transitions are expected to occur. We also find no evidence of the monoclinic distortion of the unit cell proposed others. We parameterise the octahedral tilt and distortion as a function of temperature which show a linear evolution towards a more symmetric form.