The TDPAC study of the hyperfine interactions at 111Cd nuclei in RAl3 compounds synthesized under high pressure

The time-differential perturbed angular correlations technique (TDPAC) has been employed for measuring the parameters of hyperfine interactions in earlier known RAl3 compounds, synthesized at high pressure (8 GPa) and high temperature, where R = La, Ce, Sm, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Yb and Lu. The 111Cd(111In) radioactive atom was used as a probe nucleus. The X-ray method has revealed that with the increase in the atomic number of a rare-earth element R, the obtained RAl3 high-pressure phases crystallize, respectively, into orthorhombic, hexagonal and cubic structures. It has been found that in the compounds containing R=La, Ce, Sm and Gd, a deviation from earlier known structural types and the formation of new ones is observed, which is associated with the change of the stoichiometric composition of the said compounds. The results of the PAC measurements have confirmed the deviation from the predetermined stoichiometric composition 1R:3Al for the compounds LaAl3, CeAl3, SmAl3 and GdAl3 and have verified the RAl3 stoichiometric structure for the other high-pressure phases obtained in this work.