Ultra-high vacuum compatible preparation chain for intermetallic compounds

Abstract

We report the development of a versatile material preparation chain for intermetallic compounds that focuses on the realization of a high-purity growth environment. The preparation chain comprises of an argon glovebox, an inductively heated horizontal cold boat furnace, an arc melting furnace, an inductively heated rod casting furnace, an optically heated floating-zone furnace, a resistively heated annealing furnace, and an inductively heated annealing furnace. The cold boat furnace and the arc melting furnace may be loaded from the glovebox by means of a load-lock permitting to synthesize compounds starting with air-sensitive elements while handling the constituents exclusively in an inert gas atmosphere. All furnaces are all-metal sealed, bakeable, and may be pumped to ultra-high vacuum. We find that the latter represents an important prerequisite for handling compounds with high vapor pressure under high-purity argon atmosphere. We illustrate operational aspects of the preparation chain in terms of the single-crystal growth of the heavy-fermion compound CeNi2Ge2.

12 pages, 11 figures

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• Ultra-high vacuum compatible induction-heated rod casting furnace
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• Specific Heat Study of Non-Fermi Liquid Behavior in CeNi_2Ge_2: Anomalous Peak in Quasi-Particle Density-of-States
• Quality of Heusler Single Crystals Examined by Depth Dependent Positron Annihilation Techniques
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Cited by in corpus (13)

• Entropy-limited topological protection of skyrmions
• Magnetoelastic hybrid excitations in CeAuAl${}_3$
• Weak crystallization of fluctuating skyrmion textures in MnSi
• Network of topological nodal planes, multifold degeneracies, and Weyl points in CoSi
• Evolution of magneto-crystalline anisotropies in Mn${}_{1-x}$Fe${}_x$Si and Mn${}_{1-x}$Co${}_x$Si as inferred from small-angle neutron scattering and bulk properties
• Canted antiferromagnetism in phase-pure CuMnSb
• Quantum Oscillations of the Quasiparticle Lifetime in a Metal
• Magnetic properties of the noncentrosymmetric tetragonal antiferromagnet EuPtSi${}_3$
• Fermi surface of the chiral topological semimetal CoSi
• Resonant elastic X-ray scattering of antiferromagnetic superstructures in EuPtSi${}_3$
• Compositional Studies of Metals with Complex Order by means of the Optical Floating-Zone Technique
• Incommensurate antiferromagnetic order in CePtAl${}_3$
• Long-range magnetic order in CePdAl${}_3$ enabled by orthorhombic deformation