Hydrogen ordering and new polymorph of layered perovskite oxyhydrides: Sr₂VO(4-x)H(x)

Compositionally tunable vanadium oxyhydrides Sr2VO(4-x)H(x) (0 ≤ x ≤ 1.01) without considerable anion vacancy were synthesized by high-pressure solid-state reaction. The crystal structures and their properties were characterized by powder neutron diffraction, synchrotron X-ray diffraction, thermal desorption spectroscopy, and first-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The hydrogen anions selectively replaced equatorial oxygen sites in the VO6 layers via statistical substitution of hydrogen in the low x region (x < 0.2). A new orthorhombic phase (Immm) with an almost entirely hydrogen-ordered structure formed from the K2NiF4-type tetragonal phase with x > 0.7. Based on the DFT calculations, the degree of oxygen/hydrogen anion ordering is strongly correlated with the bonding interaction between vanadium and the ligands.