Ma. Green et al., THE CRYSTAL-STRUCTURE AND MAGNETIC-PROPERTIES OF CUGEO3, Journal of the Chemical Society, Chemical Communications, (17), 1994, pp. 1995-1996
The crystal structure of CuGeO3, which has been reported to undergo a
spin-Peierls transition at 14 K, is determined by neutron powder diffr
action at 300, 20 and 4.2 K and the structure refined in the space gro
up Pmma at all three temperatures, ie without displacement of the Cu a
toms from a uniform one-dimensional chain; anisotropic broadening of (
h0l) reflections, observed in all three data sets, is successfully mod
elled by an orthorhombic micro-strain along a and c ba perpendicular t
o Cu-Cu chains. Below 10 K the magnetic susceptibility fits very well
to the Bulaevskii model, indicating a ratio of 0.69 between the Cu-Cu
exchange constants in the dimerised chain and a mean exchange constant
of 88 K.