Phase formation and crystallinity of the sintered specimens
were characterized by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD) in a
Philips X’pert PRO X-ray diffractometer. Cu K (λ = 1.5408 A) ˚
was used as the incident radiation and the data were collected in a
2θ range from 20◦ to 60◦ with a step size of 0.0167◦ and a counting
time of 2.0 s per step. Before performing X-ray diffraction
studies the X-ray diffractometer has been calibrated by standard
sample polycrystalline Si. All the XRD patterns were analyzed
by means of the Fullprof suite of Rietveld software, in which the
pseudo-Voigt function was used as the profile function. The cell
parameters for all specimens were determined from such fittings
on the basis of the structural model solved by Lacorre et al. for
the high-temperature form of La2Mo2O9.