Crystal structure of UNi$_{0.5}$Sb$_{2}$
ORAL
Abstract
We report the single crystal neutron diffraction studies done to resolve the room-temperature structure of Uranium antimonide, UNi$_{0.5}$Sb$_{2}$. The time-of-flight single-crystal neutron diffraction experiments at room temperature were done on the Single Crystal Diffractometer, SCD, at Los Alamos Neutron Science Center. Previous X-ray single crystal and neutron powder diffraction studies could not unambiguously resolve the structure because of the presence of hkl/2 type reflections. The studies were done on a 2 x 1 x 0.5 mm$^{3}$ crystal and half-indexed reflections were observed corroborating the observations in previous studies. The crystal structure that accounts for all the observed reflections is determined to be tetragonal P4$_{2}$/n m c with lattice parameters a, b, c being 4.333(2) {\AA}, 4.333(2) {\AA} and 17.868(6) {\AA} respectively. A preliminary study shows no crystal structure distortion below at 10K and the compound orders antiferromagnetically.
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Authors
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Karunakar Kothapalli
New Mexico State University
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Milton Torikachvili
San Diego State University
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H. Nakotte
New Mexico State University