Low temperature heat capacity of Rh-Cu alloys

Abstract

Reported here are the low temperature heat capacity data on a series of single phase fcc Rh-Cu alloys. The electronic heat capacity coefficient, γ, decreases rapidly up to 20 at % of copper in Rh and then stays constant to ∼60 at % Cu after which decreases smoothly to the pure Cu value. This is interpreted as due to the initial partial filling of the d-band after which the conduction electron of Cu goes into the s-band. An attempt is made to understand the origins of the curious anomalies in the Debye temperature and microhardness data.