Electric Field Gradients and Charge Density in Lithium Nitride

The magnitudes of the electric field gradients at all atomic positions in LiaN are known from NQR experiments. High-temperature NQR data indicate the gradients at Li(1) and Li(2) to be of opposite sign. In this paper, we calculate the field gradients from X-ray data and refine the parameters of the multipole deformation functions together with scale, extinction and temperature factors against X-ray and NQR data simultaneously, assuming various sign combinations for the gradients at Li(1), Li(2) and N. Despite an ill-defined scale factor of the X-ray intensities, negative signs at both Li(2) and N are obtained, and the sign at Li(1) is thus positive. The same signs are obtained from an ionic point-charge model. The extinction correction is important and dependent on the assumed signs. The model deformation map for the signs +, -, - at Li(1), Li(2) and N shows nearly spherical Li ions, whereas N appears to be strongly polarized perpendicular to c. With the assumption of the incorrect negative sign at Li(1), a strongly polarized Li(1) ion but approximately the same reliability indices for the X-ray data are obtained. Inclusion of NQR data in the charge-density refinement results in a better definition of the quadrupolar components of the deformation density close to the atomic centres.