High-temperature polymorph of In2La

A polymorph of In2La was discovered by observing a change in the quadrupole interaction at nuclei of 111In/Cd probe atoms at high temperature using the technique of perturbed angular correlation of gamma rays. Point-symmetry information from the measured electric field gradient and chemical considerations suggests that the high-temperature polymorph has the hexagonal AlB2 structure. The transformation between the low-temperature phase, which has the CeCu2 structure, and the high-temperature phase takes place with hysteresis over a temperature range from 200 to 450 °C.