Crystal structures and magnetic properties of the BaAl4-type structure derivatives in Gd–Al–Ga system

Abstract

Abstract The crystal structures of GdAl x Ga 4− x − v compounds (8–66 at.% Ga, x = 3.6–0.70, v = 0–0.12) were studied by the X-ray diffraction methods (both single crystal and powder diffraction ones). Two new types of structure (monoclinic GdAl 3.00 Ga 0.76 and orthorhombic GdAl 2 Ga 2 ) were shown to be constructed of two distorted BaAl 4 -like fragments. Reasoning from the peculiarities of crystal structures, the whole existence region of the GdAl x Ga 4− x − v compounds is fragmented into seven narrow individual ones (seven compounds). At the temperature range 300–650 K the GdAl x Ga 4− x − v alloys were shown to be paramagnets with magnetic moments decreasing from 8.07 to 7.84 μ B with Ga-content increasing.