Structure and Transport Properties in Itinerant Antiferromagnet RE2(Ni1- xCu x)5As3O2 (RE = Ce, Sm)

Xu Chen; Jian-Gang Guo; Chunsheng Gong; Erjian Cheng; Yanpeng Song; Tianping Ying; Jun Deng; Shiyan Li; Xiaolong Chen

doi:10.1021/acs.inorgchem.8b03360

Structure and Transport Properties in Itinerant Antiferromagnet RE₂(Ni_{1- x}Cu _x)₅As₃O₂ (RE = Ce, Sm)

Inorg Chem. 2019 Feb 18;58(4):2770-2776. doi: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.8b03360. Epub 2019 Jan 25.

Authors

Xu Chen^{1

2}, Jian-Gang Guo^{1

3}, Chunsheng Gong¹, Erjian Cheng⁴, Yanpeng Song^{1

2}, Tianping Ying⁴, Jun Deng^{1

2}, Shiyan Li^{4

5}, Xiaolong Chen^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics , Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences , P.O. Box 603, Beijing 100190 , China.
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100049 , China.
³ Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory , Dongguan , Guangdong 523808 , China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Department of Physics, and Laboratory of Advanced Materials , Fudan University , Shanghai 200433 , China.
⁵ Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures , Nanjing 210093 , China.

PMID: 30681840
DOI: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.8b03360

Abstract

We report the crystal structure and physical properties of two Ni₅As₃-based compounds RE₂Ni₅As₃O₂ (RE = Ce, Sm). The former exhibits structural phase transition from tetragonal (space group I4/ mmm, 139) to orthorhombic (space group Immm, 71) symmetry at 230 K, while the latter undergoes a charge-density-wave-like structural distortion with abrupt change of Ni-As bond length. Both compounds show antiferromagnetic transitions due to RE³⁺ ions ordering at 4.4 and 3.4 K, accompanying with the large enhancement of Sommerfeld coefficients comparing to the nonmagnetic La analogue. Although the Cu substitution for Ni induces structural anomalies and suppression of structural transition like the behaviors in La/Pr/Nd analogues, the superconductivity is not observed in both Cu-doped RE₂Ni₅As₃O₂ (RE = Ce, Sm) above 0.25 K. Our structural refinements reveal that the lacking of superconductivity in RE₂(Ni_{1- x}Cu _x)₅As₃O₂ might relate to the anomalous increase of As height, h₁.