On new ternary equiatomic scandium transition metal aluminum compounds ScTAl with T = Cr, Ru, Ag, Re, Pt, and Au

The new equiatomic scandium transition metal aluminides ScTAl for T = Cr, Ru, Ag, Re, Pt, and Au were obtained by arc-melting of the elements followed by subsequent annealing for crystal growth. The samples were studied by powder and single crystal X-ray diffraction. The structures of three compounds were refined from single crystal X-ray diffractometer data: ScCrAl, MgZn2 type, P63/mmc, a = 525.77(3), c = 858.68(5) pm, R1 = 0.0188, wR2 = 0.0485, 204 F2 values, 13 variables, ScPtAl, TiNiSi type, Pnma, a = 642.83(4), b = 428.96(2), c = 754.54(5) pm, R1 = 0.0326, wR2 = 0.0458, 448 F2 values, 20 variables and ScAuAl, HfRhSn type, P6̅2c, a = 722.88(4), c = 724.15(4) pm, R1 = 0.0316, wR2 = 0.0653, 512 F2 values, 18 variables. Phase pure samples of all compounds were furthermore investigated by magnetic susceptibility measurements, and Pauli-paramagnetism but no superconductivity was observed down to 2.1 K for all of them. The local structural features and disordering phenomena have been characterized by 27Al and 45Sc magic angle spinning (MAS) and static NMR spectroscopic investigations.

First-principle investigations of structural and electronic properties of TMAl (TM = Fe, Co, and Ni) transition metal aluminides

In the present work, we have investigated the structural and electronic properties of TMAl (TM = Fe, Co, and Ni) transition metal aluminides in the B2 structure, using first-principle calculations of the density functional theory (DFT) based on the linearized augmented plane wave method (FP-LAPW) as implemented in the WIEN2k code, in which the energy of exchange and correlation are treated by the generalized gradient approximation (GGA), proposed in 1996 by Perdew, Burke and Ernzerhof (PBE). The ground state properties have been calculated and compared with other calculations, and the electronic structures of all FeAl, CoAl, and NiAl compounds exhibited a metallic behavior. It was depicted that the density of states is characterized by the large hybridization between the s-p (Al) and 3d (Fe, Co, and Ni) states, which creates the pseudogap in the region of anti-bonding states. Moreover, the band structures of FeAl, CoAl, and NiAl are similar to each other and the difference between them is in the energy level of each band relative to the Fermi level.