Study of the crystalline electric field on R3+ in RCrO3 (R=Pr, Nd, Tb, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb). I

Low lying crystalline electric field (CEF) levels of R3+ in RCrO3 (R=Pr,Nd,Tb,Ho,Er,Tm,Yb) were calculated in the paramagnetic state. The 15 CEF parameters in the hamiltonian consistent with the Csub(1h) symmetry of the R3+ ion, were reduced to five by assuming cubic symmetry with an orthorhombic distortion. It was assumed that these five parameters do not depend on R. The parameters were refined to yield a best fit between the calculated eigenvalues and the experimentally observed energy levels. This analysis produced one set of five parameters which gave a good fit with the heavy rare earths (R=Tb,Ho,Er,Tm,Yb) only. When the light rare earths (R=Pr,Nd) were included the analysis failed to yield a good fit. (Auth.)