Synthesis and crystal structures of RERhIn (RE=Sm, Tb, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb, Lu)
Introduction
The ternary systems rare earth (RE) metal – rhodium – indium have first been investigated by Ferro and coworkers in Genova already in 1974 [1]. They report on the synthesis and X-ray powder characterization of RERhIn with RE=Y, La, Nd, Gd, Dy, and Er, while the cerium [2], praseodymium [3], and europium [4] compounds were described later. The course of the cell volumes indicates non-trivalent oxidation states for the cerium and europium atoms in CeRhIn [5], [6], [7], [8], [9] and EuRhIn [4], respectively, giving rise for interesting physical properties: CeRhIn is a mixed-valent Kondo compound and EuRhIn with purely divalent europium orders ferromagnetically at 22 K.
Within the series of RERhIn intermetallics not all compounds have yet been investigated. Especially the ytterbium compound is missing. This compound is of high interest since the YbTIn indides (T=transition metal) are potential candidates when screening for mixed valent compounds [10]. In the course of our systematic investigations of the ternary RE–Rh–In systems we prepared the missing RERhIn intermetallics and refined the structures with Sm, Tb, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb, and Lu as rare earth metal component. The syntheses and crystal chemistry of these materials is reported herein.
Section snippets
Synthesis
Starting materials for the preparation of the RERhIn intermetallics were ingots of the rare earth metals (Johnson Matthey), rhodium powder (Degussa-Hüls), and indium tear drops, all with stated purities better than 99.9%. In a first step, the rare earth metal ingots were cut into small pieces under dried paraffin oil. The latter was washed off with dried (over sodium wire) n-hexane and the pieces were melted to buttons (except ytterbium) in an arc-melting furnace [11] under an argon atmosphere.
Structure refinements
The isotypy of SmRhIn, TbRhIn, HoRhIn, ErRhIn, and TmRhIn with the ZrNiAl type (space group P2m) [15], [16], [17], and YbRhIn and LuRhIn with the TiNiSi type (space group Pnma) [18] was already evident from the X-ray powder data. The atomic parameters of PrRhIn [3] and TiNiSi [18] were taken as starting positions and the seven structures were then successfully refined using Shelxl-97 [19] (full-matrix least-squares on Fo2) with anisotropic atomic displacement parameters for all atoms.
As a
Acknowledgements
We thank B. Heying, Dr. R.-D. Hoffmann, and Dipl.-Ing. U. Ch. Rodewald for the intensity data collections and the Degussa-Hüls AG for a generous gift of rhodium powder. This work was financially supported by the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. M.L. is indebted to the NRW Graduate School of Chemistry for a PhD stipend.
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