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Floating Zone Crystal Growth of Lu2PdSi3 Silicide

Chongde Cao 1Christian G F. Blum 2Wolfgang Löser 2Steven Rodan 2Dirk Bombor 2

1. Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710072, China
2. Leibniz-Institute for Solid State and Materials Research, P.O.Box 270116, Dresden D-01171, Germany

Abstract

The single crystals of various rare earth (R) – transition metal intermetallic compounds within the class of R2PdSi3 with hexagonal AlB2-type crystallographic structure exhibit a systematic dependence of anisotropic magnetic properties governed by the interplay of crystal-electric field effects and magnetic two-ion interactions. Lu2PdSi3 represents a non-magnetic member of the class of R2PdSi3 intermetallic compounds. No information has been available on the crystal growth, structure and physical properties of Lu2PdSi3 intermetallic compound. In this work, single crystals of the Lu2PdSi3 compound have been successfully grown at velocities of 5 and 3 mm/h by using the floating zone method with optical heating. The axial temperature profile across the floating zone indicates a steep temperature gradient at the interface of the growing crystal, which is a prerequisite for suppression of the morphological instability of the crystal/melt interface at moderate growth rates despite the sizeable composition difference between the crystal and the travelling solvent. Microstructure analysis of the quenched liquid zone shows that a structure of Lu2PdSi3 dendrites with interdendritic binary eutectic is formed. Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis reveals that the Lu2PdSi3 crystal has a Pd-depleted composition. The electrical resistivity and specific heat of the Lu2PdSi3 single crystals show this compound resembles a normal metal with relatively low Debye temperature. But the electrical resistivity displays a high anisotropy between orientations along the c-axis and within the plane perpendicular to the axis, respectively.

 

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Presentation: Poster at 17th International Conference on Crystal Growth and Epitaxy - ICCGE-17, Topical Session 1, by Wolfgang Löser
See On-line Journal of 17th International Conference on Crystal Growth and Epitaxy - ICCGE-17

Submitted: 2013-04-13 11:27
Revised:   2013-04-13 11:59