An odyssey through the rare earths. A quest for knowledge

Abstract

Research highlights on rare earth materials are described from the earliest days as a graduate student during the mid 1950s, through the six years at Los Alamos, to the last 28 at Iowa State University. The early work was concerned with the rare earth carbides which led to an appreciation of systematics of the properties of rare earth materials. Use of the systematic variation of properties and behaviors is a powerful tool in understanding the nature of certain phenomena - in particular solid solution formation and the role of 4f electrons in bonding (4f hybridization). Some of the anomalous 4f properties of cerium metal and cerium compounds, and the quenching of spin fluctuations in exchanged enhanced materials, are also discussed.