A variable temperature synchrotron X-ray diffraction study of the ferroelastic double perovskite Ba2GdMoO6.

A study of the magnetic and structural properties of the double perovskite Ba2GdMoO6 has been performed. The crystal structure distorts from the ideal cubic (Fm3m) structure to the tetragonal space group I4/m at 220 K, before undergoing a second distortion to a triclinic system (I1) at 80 K. The phase transition to triclinic symmetry is also evident in magnetic susceptibility measurements. The variable temperature synchrotron powder X-ray diffraction results reveal that Ba2GdMoO6 is ferroelastic, with the onset of ferroelastic domain formation occurring at the cubic-tetragonal phase transition. A number of Rietveld refinement techniques for modelling diffuse scattering from ferroelastic domain boundaries have been explored.