Neutron diffraction study of magnetic order in the ternary superconductor ErMo/sub 6/Se/sub 8/

Conference · Sat Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1977

OSTI ID:5149699

Lynn, J W; Moncton, D E; Shirane, G; Thomlinson, W; Eckert, J; Shelton, R N

Synthesis of new classes of ternary superconducting materials has led to compounds which also show a strong tendency toward magnetic order when one of the constituent elements is a rare earth. Powder neutron diffraction data on superconducting (T/sub s/ approximately 6 K) samples of ErMo/sub 6/Se/sub 8/ taken in the temperature range 0.05 to 2.0 K show that magnetic Bragg peaks develop at T/sub M/ = 1.1 K, in agreement with specific heat studies. However, it is not possible to index these new reflections using a simple antiferromagnetic unit cell based on the ErMo/sub 6/Se/sub 8/ lattice. It is also not possible to index the magnetic reflections based on a single modulation vector, or with a modulation vector along a high symmetry direction including higher order harmonics. Thus either the long range magnetic order corresponds to a more complicated magnetic structure in the ErMo/sub 6/Se/sub 8/ lattice, or at least some of the peaks develop in impurity phases. These results are compared with the recent neutron data on the reentrant superconductors HoMo/sub 6/S/sub 8/ and ErRh/sub 4/B/sub 4/, in which the development of ferromagnetic order is clearly shown to be responsible for quenching the superconductivity.

• Research Organization: Maryland Univ., College Park (USA). Dept. of Physics; Bell Labs., Murray Hill, N.J. (USA); Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, N.Y. (USA); California Univ., San Diego, La Jolla (USA). Dept. of Physics
• DOE Contract Number: EY-76-C-02-0016
• OSTI ID: 5149699
• Report Number(s): BNL-23450; CONF-771127-10
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
360603* -- Materials-- Properties
656102 -- Solid State Physics-- Superconductivity-- Acoustic
Electronic
Magnetic
Optical
& Thermal Phenomena-- (-1987)
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
CHALCOGENIDES
COHERENT SCATTERING
CRYSTAL STRUCTURE
DIFFRACTION
ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY
ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES
ERBIUM COMPOUNDS
ERBIUM SELENIDES
MAGNETIC PROPERTIES
MOLYBDENUM COMPOUNDS
MOLYBDENUM SELENIDES
NEUTRON DIFFRACTION
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
RARE EARTH COMPOUNDS
SCATTERING
SELENIDES
SELENIUM COMPOUNDS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY
TRANSITION ELEMENT COMPOUNDS