The role of the A monovalent cation in the AVF 3 perovskite series. A quantum mechanical investigation.

The relative stability of various phases of five AVF 3 compounds (A = Li, Na, K, Rb and Cs) is investigated starting from the cubic (C) Pm 3̄ m (221) prototype structure, with five atoms (one formula unit) in the primitive cell. To the authors' knowledge, only three of these compounds have been investigated experimentally (Na, K and Rb), and they are reported as being cubic. The picture emerging from the present simulation is quite different: CsVF 3 and RbVF 3 are dynamically stable in the cubic structure, KVF 3 is tetragonal, with space group (SG) I 4/ mcm (no. 140) and 10 atoms in the unit cell; note, however, that an orthorhombic Pnma (62) phase (four formula units) exists, which is not a subgroup of I 4/ mcm (140), and is very close in energy to the tetragonal phase. Further symmetry lowering is observed in the Na and Li compounds that are orthorhombic. The energy gain and volume reduction with respect to the cubic aristotype increase along the series K, Na and Li, and is very large for the last two compounds. Both FM and AFM solutions have been explored, and they show a very similar path along the SG modifications. The present scheme for determining the lowest energy SG is general, and can be applied to any perovskite. The B3LYP full range hybrid functional and the Hartree-Fock (HF) Hamiltonian, an all-electron Gaussian type basis set and the CRYSTAL code have been used.