PAC study of martensitic transformations in RCu compounds

 The martensitic transformation from the cubic CsCl-type to the orthorhombic FeB-type structure of RCu (R=Gd, Tb and Y) compounds has been investigated by perturbed angular correlation (PAC) measurements of the nuclear electric quadrupole interaction (QI) at 111Cd probe nuclei on the Cu site as a function of temperature. The QI data indicate that the martensitic transition extends over a finite temperature range and affects only part of the samples. The transition ranges are 190 K