Ba
2Co
2+3Co
3+6O
14 has been prepared by conventional solid-state reaction between BaO
2 and CoO. Itscrystal structure has been refined from single-crystal X-ray diffraction data and powder neutron diffraction,
a = 5.6963(8) Å,
c = 28.924(6) Å, space group
R
m,
Z = 3, R1 = 4.44%, wR2 = 10.96%. It showsevidence of new building blocks called T' (ch'h'c stacking sequence of cubic O
4 and hexagonal BaO
3layers) by analogy with the related T-blocks (hh'h'h) of the
barium hexaferrites. T' consists of Co
II,IIIO
2brucite-like layers pillared by Co
IIO
4 tetrahedra and Co
III3O
12 octahedral trimers. Below
TN = 39 K,tetrahedral and octahedral high spin Co
II (
S = 3/2) diluted in the framework mainly containing low spinCo
III (
S = 0) interact through Co
II-O-O-Co
II through super-super exchanges (SSE) only. The analysisof the competition between the multiple SSE paths has been performed through geometrical considerations.The magnetic moments are lying antiferromagnetically in the
a,
b plane in good agreement with themagnetic group theory presented in our work. Their values of 1.70(4)
![](/images/entities/mgr.gif)
B and 2.83(3)
![](/images/entities/mgr.gif)
B for the octahedraland tetrahedral Co
II, respectively, are explained by the high degree of covalency and magnetic transfertoward the surrounding anions involved in the SSEs. At high temperature, the creation of oxygen vacanciesis observed and strongly intervenes in the hopping conductivity as shown from the abrupt change in thematching Arrhenius law. This particular feature demonstrates potential mixed conductivity processes inthe medium-temperature range. At 1000
![](/images/entities/deg.gif)
C, it reversibly decomposes into CoO and BaCoO
3-![](/images/gifchars/delta.gif)
. Finally,the medium crystallinity of the title compound is explained by the presence of defects and intergrowthswith other hexagonal perovskites of the Ba-Co-O system.