Isothermal section of the La-Mg-Sn system at 500 °C and crystal structure of the new ternary stannide LaMgSn2

Abstract

The 500°C isothermal section of the La–Mg–Sn ternary system was established by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDXS) and powder X-ray diffraction (XRPD) on more than fifty alloys synthesized by induction melting and annealed.A few boundary binary compounds were found to dissolve the third element, forming ternary solid solutions, among which La(MgxSn1−x)3 (0≤x≤0.14, cP4-AuCu3) is the most extended. The existence and crystal structure of three ternary compounds were confirmed, and their homogeneity ranges at 500°C determined: La3Mg4−xSn2+x (0.12≤x≤0.40, hP9-Zr3Cu4Si2), LaMg3−xSn2 (0.33≤x≤0.78, hP34-LaMg3−xGe2) and LaMgSn (oP12-TiNiSi). The crystal structures of two novel ternary stoichiometric compounds, found during this work, were determined from powder X-ray diffraction pattern analysis and refined using the Rietveld method: La6Mg23Sn (Fm3¯m, cF120-Zr6Zn23Si, a =1.47107(1) nm) and LaMgSn2 (I4¯2m, tI32-LaMgSn2, a =0.83325(3) nm, c =1.24385(5) nm). The latter is the first representative of a new structure type and can be presented as composed by a complex Mg-Sn network hosting the bigger La atoms.