Optical study has revealed the variation of the electronic structures of the covalent Mn-O network in the orthorhombic RMnO 3 compounds. 8) The absorption coefficient (α) was calculated from transmittance and reflectance measurements as a function of incident photon energy (hν). 11) The plot of α 2 versus hν is shown in Fig. 1 since α 2 rather than α varied linearly with hν in the high energy region of the absorption edge. A straight line behavior of the α 2 versus hν plot in the high energy region was taken as the prime evidence for a direct band gap, although low-lying broad tails made it difficult to estimate an accurate value for the band gap energy. The band gap energies of about 4.2 and 4.3 eV were determined for oand h-YMnO 3 , respectively, by extrapolating the linear portion of the plot to α 2 = 0, as shown in Fig. 1.In the low energy region below the absorption edge, the absorption spectrum deviated from the straight line plot. There may be two possible types of transition due to the 3d 4 electronic configuration of the Mn 3+ ion: dd transitions and charge transfer excitations from the valence bands to the Mn 3d level. 12) A low-lying broad peak occurred around 1.6 eV for h-YMnO 3 . The spectra are attributed to d-d electronic transitions within the Mn 3+ ions. 4) On the other hand, the spectrum consisted of two charge transfer type transitions around 3 and 4 eV for o-YMnO 3 , which was similar to the spectrum of LaMnO 3 . 8) X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is a powerful technique which allows the deduction of chemical bonding information for a given compound. The narrow-scan XPS core level spectra of Mn 2p, Y 3d, and O 1s of the two YMnO 3 phases are shown in Figs. 2, 3, and 4, respectively. The x-ray photoelectron spectra were recorded using an Al Kα x-ray source (1486.6 eV). Binding energy was calibrated with reference to C 1s (284.6 eV).Before Ar + sputtering, the Mn 2p 3/2 peak of h-YMnO 3 was at 641.18 eV in Fig. 2(a), which was at 642.05 eV for MnO 2 and at 641.5 eV for Mn 2 O 3 . 13,14) The chemical shift of the Mn 2p 3/2 peak of o-YMnO 3 was 0.3 eV with respect to h-YMnO 3 in Fig. 2(a). On the other hand, the Y 3d 5/2 peaks for the two YMnO 3 phases were at