Raman spectroscopic study of yttrium barium(2)(copper(1-x)iron(x))oxygen(7+delta)

Polycrystalline bulk samples with the chemical formula YBa2(Cu1-xFex)3O7+delta were fabricated by the standard solid-state reaction method, and studied through magnetic susceptibility and Raman scattering experiments. In the Raman experiments, the Cu(1)-O(1) c-axial Ag stretching mode at ~502cm^-1 was investigated extensively at temperatures ranging from 23K to 773K. The room-temperature Raman spectra indicated a trend for saturation in frequency shift (as a function of iron concentration). This was interpreted as evidence supporting the occurrence of a type of iron clustering in the (001) basal plane. Effects of such a cluster formation upon the mechanism of superconductivity were considered. The low temperature Raman spectra show that the 502cm^-1 mode frequency increased slightly with decreasing temperature for all of the studied values of iron concentration without exhibiting any anomalous behavior. In the high temperature Raman spectra, a significant softening of the 502cm^-1 mode, indicative of a phase transition onset, was observed.