ELECTRON SPIN RESONANCE OF VANADIUM IN SILVER CHLORIDE

Vanadium-doped silver chloride is prepared by dipping vanadium metal into molten silver chloride. The vanadium enters the lattice substitutionally in the doubly ionized state. Silver-ion vacancies are associated with the vanadium ions in next-nearest cation positions at 93°K. The symmetry of the crystal field at the vanadium ions is tetragonal and the values of the constants in the spin Hamiltonian are D = (557·2 ± 0·9) × 10-4 cm-1, A = (77·7 ± 0·5) × 10-4 cm-1, B = (76·3 ± 0·5) × 10-4 cm-1, gparallel = 1·9657 ± 0·0007 and gperpendicular = 1·9666 ± 0·0007. At 415°K the vacancies are no longer associated. The field symmetry is octahedral and the values of the constants in the spin Hamiltonian are A = (77·7 ± 0·5) × 10-4 cm-1 and g = 1·9657 ± 0·0007. The situation is similar to that reported by Grossberg and by Daehler for manganese in silver chloride. The temperature variation in the width of lines which constitute the outer fine-structure components of the spectrum gives an activation energy of 0·30 ± 0·05 ev for vacancy motion. Vanadium-doped silver chloride is not found to be noticeably photo-active.