Photoemission Study of the Rare Earth Intermetallic Compounds: RNi<sub>2</sub>Ge<sub>2</sub> (R=Eu, Gd)

Abstract

EuNi{sub 2}Ge{sub 2} and GdNi{sub 2}Ge{sub 2} are two members of the RT{sub 2}X{sub 2} (R = rare earth, T = transition metal and X = Si, Ge) family of intermetallic compounds, which has been studied since the early 1980s. These ternary rare-earth intermetallic compounds with the tetragonal ThCr{sub 2}Si{sub 2} structure are known for their wide variety of magnetic properties, Extensive studies of the RT{sub 2}X{sub 2} series can be found in Refs [ 1,2,3]. The magnetic properties of the rare-earth nickel germanides RNi{sub 2}Ge{sub 2} were recently studied in more detail [4]. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the electronic structure (both valence band and shallow core levels) of single crystals of EuNi{sub 2}Ge{sub 2} and GdNi{sub 2}Ge{sub 2} and to check the assumptions that the f electrons are non-interacting and, consequently, the rigid-band model for these crystals would work [11], using synchrotron radiation because, to the best of our knowledge, no photoemission measurements on those have been reported. Photoemission spectroscopy has been widely used to study the detailed electronic structure of metals and alloys, and especially angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) has proven to be a powerful technique for investigating Fermi surfaces (FSs) of single-crystal compounds.