Study of Raman active phonons in NdMnO3

Abstract A g and B 2g Raman active modes in NdMnO 3 single crystals, grown by flux and floating zone techniques, have been studied in the temperature range from 4.2 to 300 K. Similar to orthorhombic LaMnO 3 , the NdMnO 3 structure distorted by a static Jahn–Teller effect is consistent with the D 2h 16 space group. The observed phonon frequencies, intensities and bandwidths are influenced by the temperature evolution of the Mn 3+ magnetic sublattice and, particularly, the most intense B 2g mode (∼601 cm −1 ) softens below T N ∼75 K following the paramagnetic to canted-antiferromagnetic phase transition.