Lin, K., Li, G., Khmelevskyi, S., Pourovskii, L. V., Jiang, S., Kato, K., Yu, C., Cao, Y., Li, Q., Kuang, X., & Xing, X. (2023). The Structure of Terbium in the Ferromagnetic State. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 145(32), 17856–17862. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.3c04931
E057-09 - Fachbereich VSC Research Center E134 - Institut für Angewandte Physik
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Journal:
Journal of the American Chemical Society
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ISSN:
0002-7863
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Date (published):
2-Aug-2023
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Number of Pages:
7
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Publisher:
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
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Peer reviewed:
Yes
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Keywords:
chemical structure; Crystal structure; Electronic structure; Metals; Terbium
en
Abstract:
Metals typically crystallize in highly symmetric structures due to their nondirectional and nonsaturated metallic bonds. Here, we report that terbium metal in its ferromagnetic state adopts an unusual low-symmetry orthorhombic structure with a Cmcm space group. A similar structure has been previously observed only in a few actinide metals with bonding 5f electrons at ambient pressure, such as uranium, neptunium, and plutonium, but with different nearest coordination numbers and bond-length variations. The Tb atom occupies the 4c site (0, ∼0.1661, 1/4), building up -[Tb-Tb]- layers stacking along the b-axis. Our first-principles many-body calculations of the crystal field splitting in the correlated Tb 4f-shell demonstrate that the Cmcm structure for ferromagnetic terbium is stabilized by magneto-elastic forces due to a secondary order of quadrupolar moments in the ferromagnetic state. These findings are significant for further understanding of the nature of terbium, including its electron structure, energy bands, phonons, and magnetism.
