RuGavSnw Nowotny Chimney Ladder Phases and the 14-Electron Rule

✍ Scribed by Guoxin Lu; Stephen Lee; Jianhua Lin; Liping You; Junliang Sun; Joshua Teal Schmidt

• Book ID: 102605133
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 314 KB
• Volume: 164
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-4596
• DOI: 10.1006/jssc.2001.9462

✦ Synopsis

A series of ruthenium gallium stannides have been prepared with stoichiometry RuGa v Sn w , where 8؉3v ؉4w‫؍‬ 14 and 0(v(0.70. These samples have been analyzed by X-ray powder di4raction and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The data show that these compounds are Nowotny chimney ladder phases with both commensurate and incommensurate structures. We show that there are special characteristics in chimney ladder powder di4raction patterns that allow one to determine the ratio of main group atom-sites to transition metal atom-sites to high accuracy. Our results con5rm earlier work which suggest that both the stoichiometry and the structure of chimney ladder phases are dominated by electronic factors. The structures reported in this paper adhere to the 14-electron rule, i.e., there are 14 valence electrons per transition metal ion. The interplay of main group and transition metal structures leads to a pseudo c-axis, the presence of which is con5rmed by the TEM data. We discuss the relation between these phases and the Fibonacci sequence.

2002 Elsevier Science (USA)