Crystal Growth and the Search for Highly Correlated Intermetallics

Our interests lie in studying and understanding the structure-property relationships in novel ternary intermetallics synthesized by metallic flux-growth methods. This review highlights the synthesis, structures and physical properties of ternary lanthanide – transition metal – main group element intermetallics (Ln – T – X), where T = Co, Rh, Ir, Ni, Pd, and Pt, and X = Ga, In, Sb and Sn. Several phases will be discussed, including Ln n TIn3 n +2 (n = 1, 2, ∞), CePdGa6, Ce2PdGa12, Ce2PdGa10, LnNiSb3, LnNi1−x Sb2 (x ∼ 0.4) and Ln 3Co4Sn13. In addition, we report the synthesis, structure characterization, and magnetic behavior from single crystals of Ln 3Co4Sn13 (Ln = Pr, Nd, Sm, Gd, Tb).