Dresden 2014 – scientific programme

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DF: Fachverband Dielektrische Festkörper

DF 24: Crystallography in Materials Science (Joint Session with KR)

DF 24.2: Talk

Thursday, April 3, 2014, 15:30–15:45, CHE 184

Clusters in intermetallic compounds: fullerenes and more — •Julia Dshemuchadse and Walter Steurer — Laboratory of Crystallography, Department of Materials, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

The study of the structure of metals has kept crystallographers busy for the past century: starting with the simplest of structures – sphere packings, such as found in aluminium or copper – up to some of the most complex inorganic structures known to date with more than 20 000 atoms per unit cell [1]. But knowing all the atomic positions does not yet provide us with a deeper understanding of the design of the structure.

Different cluster interpretations of the atomic arrangement in an intermetallic can provide us with recurring motifs in the form of atomic environments, i.e. coordination polyhedra, or larger, endohedral clusters, such as dual Frank-Kasper polyhedra and fullerene-like shells (e.g., [2]). These cluster descriptions illustrate common features in structures either within the same intermetallic system or of related structures with entirely different constituents. However, they do not necessarily represent chemical entities and their meaningfulness is usually derived from their repeated occurrence in diverse compounds.

We will present possible ways of structure description for complex intermetallic phases and clues toward their significance.

[1] T. Weber, J. Dshemuchadse, M. Kobas, M. Conrad, B. Harbrecht and W. Steurer, Acta Cryst. B 65, 308–317 (2009).

[2] J. Dshemuchadse, S. Bigler, A. Simonov, T. Weber, W. Steurer, Acta Cryst. B 69, 238–248 (2013).