Crystal structure and Rietveld refinement of the new ternary compound Al14Nd5Si

Abstract The new ternary compound Al 14 Nd 5 Si has been studied by means of the X-ray powder diffraction technique and the Rietveld method. The ternary compound Al 14 Nd 5 Si has a hexagonal Ni 3 Sn-type structure with space group P 6 3 / mmc (No.194), the lattice parameters are a = 0.64470 (2) nm and c = 0.45926 (1) nm. The Smith and Snyder figure of merit for the index, F N , is F 30 = 97.8 (30). The X-ray diffraction data indicated that the crystal structure of the compound Al 14 Nd 5 Si has been successfully refined by the Rietveld method. The R -factors of Rietveld refinement are R p = 0.088 and R wp = 0.120, respectively. The thermal dependence of magnetization for the compound was measured by a vibrating sample magnetometer. The experimentally determined magnetic effective paramagnetic moment is μ eff = 3.60 μ B per Nd atom. The paramagnetic Currie temperature θ p = −33.7 K was also obtained from the Currie-Weiss law.