EPR Investigation of Stabilized ZrO2 Single Crystals Doped with Chromium and Manganese

EPR of Mn2+ and Cr3+ impurity ions in cubic single crystals of (ZrO2)0.9(Y2O3)0.1 solid solutions is studied in X- and Q-bands at 300 and 77 K. A set of Mn2+ centres differing by coordination, value, and symmetry of the crystalline field as well as trigonal Cr3+ centres with considerable zero-field splitting are found. For the Cr3+ centres and some of Mn2+ centres charge compensation by anion vacancies (main lattice defect) exists. Considerable linewidths are an indication of pronounced lattice distortion about the impurity centres. [Russian Text Ignored.]