Band properties of metallic corundum-phase V₂O₃

Band structure results for metallic corundum-phase V 2 O 3 feature narrow ( approximately 2.7 eV) t 2g conduction bands and a density-of-states peak at E F such that the heat capacity to band ratio is approximately 4.4. The predominant V(3d) character of conduction electrons suggests that transport properties will be especially sensitive to cation disorder. It is proposed that the structural and resistivity anomalies that occur in Cr-doped samples may arise from dopants that are interstitial (i.e., at NiAs-type cation sites which are vacant in the corundum structure) rather than substitutional.