High-quality single crystal growth of uranium-based intermetallics

Abstract

Single crystals of various uranium-based intermetallics such as UPt 3, UPd 2Al 3, U 6Fe, URu 2Si 2, etc., were grown by the Czochralski pulling method in a tetra-arc furnace. Subsequent annealing treatment by the solid-state electrotransport (SSE) method under ultra-high vacuum is found to be quite effective for compounds UPt 3 and CeRu 2. The residual resistivity ratio (RRR) of CeRu 2 has been improved from 30 to about 300 after the SSE treatment. In the case of UPt 3, the best annealing temperature is about 900°C, where RRR is increased up to 640.