Douglas H Fabini, Kedar Honasoge, Adi Cohen, Sebastian Bette, Kyle M McCall, Constantinos C Stoumpos, Steffen Klenner, Mirjam Zipkat, Le Phuong Hoang, Jürgen Nuss, Reinhard K Kremer, Mercouri G Kanatzidis, Omer Yaffe, Stefan Kaiser, Bettina V Lotsch
Polar and chiral crystal symmetries confer a variety of potentially useful functionalities upon solids by coupling otherwise noninteracting mechanical, electronic, optical, and magnetic degrees of freedom. We describe two phases of the 3D perovskite, CsSnBr3 , which emerge below 85 K due to the formation of Sn(II) lone pairs and their interaction with extant octahedral tilts. Phase II (77 K < T < 85 K, space group P 21 / m ) exhibits ferroaxial order driven by a noncollinear pattern of lone pair-driven distortions within the plane normal to the unique octahedral tilt axis, preserving the inversion symmetry observed at higher temperatures...
May 31, 2024: Journal of the American Chemical Society