Crystal structure of LaVO3 by Rietveld refinement method

Structure refinement of LaVO3 was carried out using the whole pattern fitting or Rietveld method, which is a powerful technique for extracting structural information from powder diffraction data. The crystal structure refinement was done using powder X-ray diffraction data measured on a conventional diffractometer. The structure is orthorhombic, with space group Pnma having lattice parameters a = 5.5470(2) Angstrom; b = 7.8401(5) Angstrom; c = 5.5595(4) Angstrom, V = 241.778(7) Angstrom(3), Z = 4, D-x = 7.05 g cm(-3). The structure found is isostructural with GdFeO3 in which all V sites are equivalent and Voctahedra are regular. The results for the structural parameters are in a fairly good agreement with the synchrotron data published earlier. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.