Study of the environment of copper in some ternary chalcogenides by EXAFS spectroscopy

Abstract

The EXAFS data of the K absorption discontinuity of copper in some ternary chalcogenides obtained earlier are reanalysed using the graphical method originally proposed by Lytle, Sayers, and Stern. It is shown that the graphical method gives useful information about bond lengths, and also the environment of the absorbing atom. While the phase parameters of the first coordination shell α₁ and β₁ provide information about the forward and backscattering atoms, respectively, the total phase shift δ₁ gives an idea about the periodicity of the EXAFS function. It is also shown that the periodicity is affected by the presence of the other atoms in the second coordination shell in the ternary compounds studied. The potentiality of the graphical method to probe the environment of atoms is demonstrated.