Investigation of thermophysical characteristics of SrMoO4 crystals, nominally pure and doped with rare earth ions

Abstract

Thermophysical characteristics of SrMoO4 crystals (grown by the Czochralski method from intrinsic melts), nominally pure and doped with rare earth ions, have been investigated. The temperature and concentration dependences of the thermal conductivity are obtained for SrMoO4 samples containing Nd3+ (0.28, 0.56, 0.84, and 1.33 at %), Pr3+ (0.01 and 0.41 at %), Ho3+ (0.01 and 0.06 at %), and Ho3+ (0.13 at %) + Tm3+ (0.13 at %) in a temperature range of 50–300 K. The thermal conductivities are measured in the directions parallel and/or perpendicular to the crystal optical axis. The thermal conductivity of nominally pure SrMoO4 at 300 K in the direction perpendicular to the c axis has been found to be 4.2 W/(m K). The introduction of impurities of rare earth metals reduces the thermal conductivity of SrMoO4 crystals. The anisotropy of the thermal conductivity is weak. The measured molar specific heat C P (T) of a nominally pure SrMoO4 crystal is 116.2 J/(mol K) at 300 K. The temperature dependence of the phonon mean free path l(T) in a SrMoO4 crystal is calculated for the temperature range of 80-300 K based on experimental data.