A Brief Review of Electronic and Magnetic Structure of TIF3

Materials with perovskite structure are known to exhibit fascinating physical properties such as high-temperature superconductivity, negative thermal expansion (NTE) and colossal magnetoresistance. However, transition metal trifluoride perovskites are less well studied compared to their oxide counterparts though they display marked differences such as NTE behavior in ScF3. Doping of such MF3 perovskites has been the focus of the experimental work of Morelock et al. which provides a comprehensive structural study of the material class Sc1− x Ti x F3. As shown in Fig. 1, there is a structural phase transition assumed to be tied to tilting of corner sharing octahedrons in this class of crystal structures which is believed to have an electrostatic dipolar origin, seen for example even in AlF3. However, the insulating and magnetic properties of TiF3 are closely related to the transition metal 3d-electrons. The extra valence d-electron that Ti carries compared to Sc [1, 3] gives rise to unusual electronic and magnetic properties.