Evidence for boron-carbon disorder in YNi 2 10 B 2 C

Abstract

In order to investigate the degree of boron–carbon disorder in the superconducting nickel borocarbides we have performed a time-of-flight powder diffraction study of a sample of YNi2B2C isotopically enriched with highly absorbing 10B. Rietveld refinement of the resulting diffraction spectrum reveals that the boron and carbon sites are indeed disordered to a level of 8.6%.