Crystal structure and Rietveld refinement of the new ternary compound Al14Nd5Si

The new ternary compound Al14Nd5Si has been studied by means of the X-ray powder diffraction technique and the Rietveld method. The ternary compound Al14Nd5Si has a hexagonal Ni3Sn-type structure with space group P63/mmc (No.194), the lattice parameters are a = 0.64470 (2) nm and c = 0.45926 (1) nm. The Smith and Snyder figure of merit for the index, FN, is F30 = 97.8 (30). The X-ray diffraction data indicated that the crystal structure of the compound Al14Nd5Si has been successfully refined by the Rietveld method. The R-factors of Rietveld refinement are Rp = 0.088 and Rwp = 0.120, respectively. The thermal dependence of magnetization for the compound was measured by a vibrating sample magnetometer. The experimentally determined magnetic effective paramagnetic moment is μeff = 3.60 μB per Nd atom. The paramagnetic Currie temperature θp = −33.7 K was also obtained from the Currie-Weiss law.