Flux Crystal Growth of the RE2Ru3Ge5 (RE = La, Ce, Nd, Gd, Tb) Series and Their Magnetic and Metamagnetic Transitions

Daniel E Bugaris; Christos D Malliakas; Sergey L Bud'ko; Nicholas P Calta; Duck Young Chung; Mercouri G Kanatzidis

doi:10.1021/acs.inorgchem.7b02389

Flux Crystal Growth of the RE₂Ru₃Ge₅ (RE = La, Ce, Nd, Gd, Tb) Series and Their Magnetic and Metamagnetic Transitions

Inorg Chem. 2017 Dec 4;56(23):14584-14595. doi: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.7b02389. Epub 2017 Nov 21.

Authors

Daniel E Bugaris¹, Christos D Malliakas^{1

2}, Sergey L Bud'ko^{3

4}, Nicholas P Calta², Duck Young Chung¹, Mercouri G Kanatzidis^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory , Argonne, Illinois 60439, United States.
² Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University , Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University , Ames, Iowa 50011, United States.
⁴ Division of Materials Science & Engineering, Ames Laboratory , Ames, Iowa 50011, United States.

PMID: 29160701
DOI: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.7b02389

Abstract

Previously synthesized only as powders, single crystals of the RE₂Ru₃Ge₅ (RE = La, Ce, Nd, Gd, Tb) series of compounds have now been obtained from molten In. These materials crystallize with the U₂Co₃Si₅-type structure in orthorhombic space group Ibam with lattice parameters a ≈ 10.00-9.77 Å (La-Tb), b ≈ 12.51-12.35 Å, and c ≈ 5.92-5.72 Å. The structure is a three-dimensional framework consisting of RuGe₅ and RuGe₆ units, as well as Ge-Ge zigzag chains. This structure type and those of the other five (Sc₂Fe₃Si₅, Lu₂Co₃Si₅, Y₂Rh₃Sn₅, Yb₂Ir₃Ge₅, and Yb₂Pt₃Sn₅) to compose the RE₂T₃X₅ phase space are discussed in depth. For the three compounds with RE = Nd, Gd, Tb, multiple magnetic transitions and metamagnetic behavior are observed. Electronic band structure calculations performed on La₂Ru₃Ge₅ indicate that these materials have a negative band gap and are semimetallic in nature.