Electron crystallography of room temperature charge ordering in Fe3O4

A previously unknown form of charge ordering has been observed in dislocati on free thin films of magnetite, Fe3O4. This charge ordering exists on tetr ahedral sites and is unrelated to the well known low temperature ordering o n octahedral sites that occurs below 120K. From modeling of electron diffra ction patterns we deduce that the best fit to the observed diffraction patt erns was obtained by reducing the scattering power on one tetrahedral site per unit cell by about 80%.