New polymorphic modifications of
double sulfates β-AEu(SO4)2 (A–Rb+, Cs+) were
obtained by the hydrothermal method, the structure of which differs
significantly from the monoclinic modifications obtained earlier by
solid-state methods. According to single-crystal diffraction data,
it was found that the compounds crystallize in the orthorhombic system,
space group Pnna, with parameters β-RbEu(SO4)2: a = 9.4667(4) Å, b = 13.0786(5) Å, c = 5.3760(2) Å, V = 665.61(5) Å3; β-CsEu(SO4)2: a = 9.5278(5) Å, b = 13.8385(7) Å, c = 5.3783(3) Å, V = 709.13(7) Å3. The asymmetric part of the unit cell contains one-half Rb+/Cs+ ion, one-half Eu3+ ion, both in
special sites, and one SO4
2– ion. Both
compounds exhibit nonlinear negative thermal expansion. According
to the X-ray structural analysis and theoretical calculations, the
polarizing effect of the alkali metal ion has a decisive influence
on the demonstration of this phenomenon. Experimental indirect band
gaps of β-Rb and β-Cs are 4.05 and 4.11 eV, respectively,
while the direct band gaps are 4.48 and 4.54 eV, respectively. The
best agreement with theoretical calculations is obtained using the
ABINIT package employing PAW pseudopotentials with hybrid PBE0 functional,
while norm-conserving pseudopotentials used in the frame of CASTEP
code and LCAO approach in the Crystal package gave worse agreement.
The properties of alkali ions also significantly affect the luminescent
properties of the compounds, which leads to a strong temperature dependence
of the intensity of the 5D0 → 7F4 transition in β-CsEu(SO4)2 in contrast to much weaker dependence of this kind in β-RbEu(SO4)2.