An investigation on the defect structures and spin Hamiltonian parameters for the two orthorhombic Ti3+ centers in ZnWO4

By employing the perturbation formulae of the spin Hamiltonian parameters (SHPs) (g factors gxx, gyy, gzz, hyperfine structure constants Axx, Ayy, Azz and superhyperfine parameters Axx׳, Ayy׳, Azz׳) for a 3d1 ion in orthorhombically elongated octahedra and tetrahedra, the defect structures and the experimental EPR spectra are theoretically and systematically investigated for the two orthorhombic Ti3+ centers C1 and C2 in ZnWO4. Center C1 is ascribed to the impurity Ti3+ at host W6+ site associated with two nearest neighbor oxygen vacancies due to charge compensation. The resultant tetrahedral [TiO4]5- cluster is determined to undergo the local orthorhombic elongation distortion, characterized by the axial distortion angle Δθ (=θ-θ0≈-6.84°) of the local impurity-ligand bond angle θ related to θ0 (≈54.74°) and the perpendicular distortion angle Δε (=ε-ε0≈2.5°) related to ε0 (≈45°) of an ideal tetrahedron because of the Jahn-Teller effect. Center C2 is attributed to Ti3+ on Zn2+ site, and this octahedral [TiO6]9- cluster may experience the local axial elongation ΔZ (≈0.001 Ǻ) and the planar bond angle variation Δφ (≈9.1°) due to the Jahn-Teller effect, resulting in a more regular oxygen octahedron. All the calculated SHPs (i.e., g factors for both centers, the hyperfine structure constants for center C2 and superhyperfine parameters of next nearest neighbor ligand W for center C1) show good agreement with the observed values. However, the theoretical results based on the previous assignment of center C1 as Ti3+ on W6+ site with only one nearest planar oxygen vacancy (i.e., five-fold coordinated octahedral [TiO5]7- cluster) show much worse agreement with the experimental data. The defect structures and the SHPs (especially the g anisotropies) are discussed for both centers. The present studies on the superhyperfine parameters of ligand W6+ for center C1 would be helpful to further investigations on the superhyperfine interactions of cation ligands which were rather scarcely treated before.