Magnetic and electronic characterization of quasi-one-dimensional La3RuO7

The electronic and magnetic properties of La3RuO7 have been investigated. Its structure consists of corner-sharing RuO6 octahedra arranged in one-dimensional chains with a Ru-O-Ru angle of 145 degrees. The magnetic susceptibility shows Curie-Weiss behavior at 50-400 K with theta = -14 K and an effective moment of 3.94 mu(beta)/Ru atom. At lower temperatures (20-50 K), short-range antiferromagnetic order is observed. Neutron diffraction and magnetic susceptibility data show that long-range antiferromagnetic order exists below 20 K. A spin-flop transition is observed at applied fields greater than 1 T and temperatures below 17 K. Band structure calculations predict anisotropic electronic behavior and show that the ground state should be antiferromagnetic. {[}S0163-1829(99)05737-9].