No Arabic abstract
The magnetic properties of perovskite CaVO3 single crystals have been studied by means of magnetoresistance r(T, H) and magnetization M(H) measurements in fields to 18T. At 2 K, the magnetoresistance is positive and a maximum value of Dr(18T)/r(0) = 16.5% is found for H//a. The magnetization exhibits a smooth increase at 2 K, reaching values of M(18T) = 0.03, 0.05, 0.17 mB/f.u. for H//a, H//b, and H//c, respectively. This anisotropy found in M(H) is consistent with that observed for Dr(H//a) > Dr(H//b) > Dr(H//c). These results can be interpreted in terms of the field-dependent scattering mechanism of CaVO3.
We report temperature and thermal-cycling dependence of surface and bulk structures of double-layered perovskite Sr3Ru2O7 single crystals. The surface and bulk structures were investigated using low-energy electron diffraction (LEED) and single-crystal X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques, respectively. Single-crystal XRD data is in good agreement with previous reports for the bulk structure with RuO6 octahedral rotation, which increases with decreasing temperature (~ 6.7(6)degrees at 300 K and ~ 8.1(2) degrees at 90 K). LEED results reveal that the octahedra at the surface are much more distorted with a higher rotation angle (~ 12 degrees between 300 and 80 K) and a slight tilt ((4.5pm2.5) degrees at 300 K and (2.5pm1.7) degrees at 80 K). While XRD data confirms temperature dependence of the unit cell height/width ratio (i.e. lattice parameter c divided by the average of parameters a and b) found in a prior neutron powder diffraction investigation, both bulk and surface structures display little change with thermal cycles between 300 and 80 K.
We report the electrical resistivity, Hall coefficient, thermoelectric power, specific heat, and thermal conductivity on single crystals of the type-VIII clathrate Ba8Ga16Sn30 grown from Sn-flux. Negative S and R_H over a wide temperature range indicate that electrons dominate electrical transport properties. Both rho(T) and S(T) show typical behavior of a heavily doped semiconductor. The absolute value of S increases monotonically to 243 uV/K with increasing temperature up to 550 K. The large S may originate from the low carrier concentration n=3.7x10^19 cm^(-3). Hall mobility u_H shows a maximum of 62 cm^2/Vs around 70 K. The analysis of temperature dependence of u_H suggests a crossover of dominant scattering mechanism from ionized impurity to acoustic phonon scattering with increasing temperature. The existence of local vibration modes of Ba atoms in cages composed of Ga and Sn atoms is evidenced by analysis of experimental data of structural refinement and specific heat, which give an Einstein temperature of 50 K and a Debye temperature of 200 K. This local vibration of Ba atoms should be responsible for the low thermal conductivity (1.1 W/m K at 150 K). The potential of type-VIII clathrate compounds for thermoelectric application is discussed.
We report the results of ac and dc magnetic susceptibility (chi) and electrical resistivity (rho) measurements on the single crystals of Er2PdSi3, crystallizing in an AlB2-derived hexagonal structure, for two orientations H//[0001] and H//[2 -1 -1 0]. For H//[0001], there are apparently two magnetic transitions as revealed by the ac chi data, one close to 7 K attributable to antiferromagnetic ordering and the other around 2 K. However, for H // [2 -1 -1 0], we observe additional features above 7 K (near 11 and 23 K) in the plot of low-field chi(T); also, there is no corresponding anomaly in the rho(T) plot. In this respect, the magnetic behavior of this compound is novel, particularly while compared with other members of this series. The features in ac chi respond differently to the application of a small dc magnetic field for the two directions. As far as low temperature (T= 1.8 and 5 K) isothermal magnetization (M) behaviour is concerned, it exhibits meta-magnetic-like features around 2 kOe saturating at high fields for the former orientation, whereas for the latter, there is no saturation even at 120 kOe. The sign of paramagnetic Curie temperature is different for these two directions. Thus, there is a strong anisotropy in the magnetic behavior. However, interestingly, the rho(T) plots are found to be essentially isotropic, with the data revealing possible formation of magnetic superzone formation below 7 K.
The magnetic behavior of single-crystalline CeCuGa3 has been investigated. The compound forms in a tetragonal BaAl4-type structure consisting of rare-earth planes separated by Cu-Ga layers. If the Cu-Ga site disorder is reduced, CeCuGa3 adopts the related, likewise tetragonal BaNiSn3-type structure, in which the Ce ion are surrounded by different Cu and Ga layers and the inversion symmetry is lost. In the literature conflicting reports about the magnetic order of CeCuGa3 have been published. Single crystals with the centrosymmetric structure variant exhibit ferromagnetic order below approx. 4 K with a strong planar anisotropy. The magnetic behavior above the transition temperature can be well understood by the crystal-field splitting of the 4f Hunds rule ground-state multiplet of the Ce ions.
Doped BaCoSO was recently predicted to be a high-temperature superconductor in a new class based on Co and Ni. Using a Co-S self flux method, we synthesized single crystals of the antiferromagnetic insulator BaCoSO. Our magnetic and specific heat measurements and neutron diffraction provide details of its magnetic anisotropy and order. Its band gap was determined to be about 1.3 eV by our measurements of its photoemission spectrum and infrared optical conductivity. Our results can pave the way to exploring the predicted superconductivity in this Co-based material.