Synthesis and characterization of ternary Y-Fe-Ge single crystals.

• Grant number: 25/05379-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: June 01, 2025
• End date: March 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics - Condensed Matter Physics
• Principal Investigator: Fernando Assis Garcia
• Grantee: Howard Brian Anti Apaza
• Host Institution: Instituto de Física (IF). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 24/13291-8 - Disentangling Electronic excitations in Hund Metals, AP.R

Abstract

Motivated by the rich phenomenology, defined by the observation of diverse electronic phases, found in materials of the family of Fe-based superconductors (FeSCs), we propose in this work the exploration of the phase diagram for ternary alloys based on Y-Fe-Ge. The starting point of our exploration are the FeSCs YFe2Ge2. Initially considered as materials for which superconductivity (SC) was restricted to a small fraction of the material volume, it was later shown that SC in YFe2Ge2 occurs throughout the sample volume, especially for materials with low disorder level. Based on these results, we propose the systematic synthesis of YFe2Ge2 with partial substitutions at the Fe (Ni and Co) sites. We will also investigate the synthesis of 1-6-6 materials by the self-flux method, with the aim of obtaining single crystals of YFe6Ge6 , a material where the Fe atoms are organized in a Kagome lattice.