Spectroscopic studies and dynamics of Nd3+ ions in RbY2Cl7 single crystals. Part II. Crystal-field analysis Original Research Article

Crystal-field energy levels of Nd3+ ions doped in the two slightly inequivalent sites of the RbY2Cl7 host crystal were assigned and fitted to the parameters of a semiempirical Hamiltonian representing the combined atomic and crystal-field interactions. Using the one-electron crystal-field formalism 151 levels of the Nd(1) site and 156 levels of the Nd(2) site were assigned with a r.m.s. deviation of 17.5 and 15.4 cm−1, respectively. Including correlation crystal-field terms into the semiempirical Hamiltonian we could obtain an improvement of the r.m.s. deviation for the Nd(1) and Nd(2) site up to 11.4 and 10.3 cm−1, respectively, as well as the elimination of major discrepancies between the calculated and observed energy levels within the anomalous 2H(2)11/2 and 2F(2)5/2 multiplets.