4f and 5d Levels of Ce3+ in D2 8-fold oxygen coordination

The effects of the first coordination shell geometry of the trivalent Cerium ion (Ce3+) on its 4f and 5d levels in Ce-doped oxides with a D-2 8-fold site, like garnets, are studied with embedded cluster, wave function based ab initio methods. The only deformations of a D-2 CeO8 moiety that are found to shift the lowest 4f -> 5d transition to the red (longer wavelengths) are the symmetric Ce-O bond compression and the tetragonal symmetric bond bending. In a first approximation, the lowest 5d level of Ce3+ in garnets can be understood as resulting from the cubic E-g level with a strong E-g x e(g) Jahn-Teller coupling. These results are analyzed in terms of 5d - 4f centroid energy differences and ligand field stabilizations. The splittings of the upper 5d levels and of the 4f levels are also discussed. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.