Soft phonons in superconducting LuNi{sub 2}B{sub 2}C
- Ames Laboratory and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011 (United States)
Inelastic-neutron-scattering techniques have been used to measure the low-lying phonon-dispersion curves of superconducting LuNi{sub 2}B{sub 2}C along the [{xi}00] and [00{xi}] symmetry directions. The most important result of this experiment is that the phonon frequencies of the acoustic and first optical {Delta}{sub 4} [{xi}00] branches in the vicinity of the zone-boundary point {ital G}{sub 1} decrease with decreasing temperature. Actually these two branches exhibit pronounced dips at low temperatures, close to {ital G}{sub 1}. This shows that the electron-phonon interaction is quite strong and causes an incipient lattice instability, a behavior typical of strongly coupled conventional superconductors. Furthermore, the phonon anomalies occur at wave vectors close to those of the incommensurate magnetically ordered structures observed in the magnetic compounds of this family, which suggests that both the magnetic ordering and the incipient lattice instabilities are influenced by common nesting features of the Fermi surfaces of the rare-earth nickel boride carbides.
- Research Organization:
- Ames National Laboratory
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-82
- OSTI ID:
- 239355
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review, B: Condensed Matter, Vol. 52, Issue 14; Other Information: PBD: 1 Oct 1995
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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