Chemical Substitution-Induced and Competitive Formation of 6H and 3C Perovskite Structures in BaSrZnSbO: The Coexistence of Two Perovskites in 0.3 ≤ x ≤ 1.0.

6H and 3C perovskites are important prototype structures in materials science. We systemically studied the structural evolution induced by the Sr-to-Ba substitution to the parent 6H perovskite BaZnSbO. The 6H perovskite is only stable in the narrow range of x ≤ 0.2, which attributes to the impressibility of [SbO]. The preference of 90° Sb-O-Sb connection and the strong Sb-Sb electrostatic repulsion in [SbO] are competitive factors to stabilize or destabilize the 6H structure when chemical pressure was introduced by Sr incorporation. Therefore, in the following, a wide two-phase region containing 1:2 ordered 6H-BaSrZnSbO and rock-salt ordered 3C-BaSrZnSbO was observed (0.3 ≤ x ≤ 1.0). In the final, the successive symmetry descending was established from cubic (Fm3̅m, 1.3 ≤ x ≤ 1.8) to tetragonal (I4/m, 2.0 ≤ x ≤ 2.4), and finally to monoclinic (I2/m, 2.6 ≤ x ≤ 3.0). Here we proved that the electronic configurations of B-site cations, with either empty, partially, or fully filled d-shell, would also affect the structure stabilization, through the orientation preference of the B-O covalent bonding. Our investigation gives a deeper understanding of the factors to the competitive formation of perovskite structures, facilitating the fine manipulation on their physical properties.