Refine Intervention: Characterizing Disordered Yb<sub>0.5</sub>Co<sub>3</sub>Ge<sub>3</sub>
Ashley Weiland, Lucas Eddy, Gregory T. McCandless, Halyna Hodovanets, Johnpierre Paglione, Julia Y. Chan
Abstract
Single crystals of the ternary Yb0.5Co3Ge3 have been grown out of molten Sn flux and characterized by single crystal and synchrotron powder X-ray diffraction. Yb0.5Co3Ge3 adopts a hybrid YCo6Ge6/CoSn structure, crystallizing in the hexagonal space group P6/mmm with lattice parameters a ≈ 5.1 Å and c ≈ 3.9 Å. Although the compound does not magnetically order down to 2 K, Weiss temperatures of −21 K, −18.7 K, and −21 K for H//a, H//c, and the polycrystalline average, respectively, indicate antiferromagnetic interactions with μeff = 4.23 μB, slightly lower than the full Yb3+ moment of 4.54 μB. Field-dependent magnetization up to 7 T measured at 2, 5, and 10 K show a linear dependence along H//a. Magnetization at 2 K for H//c approaches saturation near 1 μB, lower than the full Yb3+ moment. Herein, we present the synthesis and characterization of Yb0.5Co3Ge3.