Disentangling octahedral distortion and symmetry breaking in the ordered double perovskite
Phys. Rev. B 114, 254102 – Published 3 November, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/54pd-ry7l
Abstract
We report a comprehensive high-temperature structural investigation of the B-site ordered double perovskite using combined Raman spectroscopy and x-ray diffraction (XRD) over the range 25–900 . Two distinct temperature-driven anomalies are identified at and through pronounced renormalizations in the phonon frequency and linewidth, accompanied by the evolution and suppression of characteristic XRD reflections. The low-temperature anomaly at is associated with an isostructural octahedral distortion within the monoclinic phase. At , the radial and angular distortion parameters of the and octahedra decrease to near-zero values before reversing upon further heating due to an inversion of the in-plane Co–O and Nb–O bond-length hierarchy. The high-temperature anomaly at corresponds to a symmetry-breaking structural phase transition from to the monoclinic phase, confirmed by group-theoretical analysis and Rietveld refinement. These results demonstrate that integrating temperature-dependent Raman spectroscopy with laboratory-based XRD, complemented by quantitative octahedral distortion analysis, provides a robust approach to disentangle isostructural octahedral distortions from symmetry-breaking phase transitions in complex double perovskite oxides without recourse to synchrotron or neutron diffraction facilities.