Study of the crystal structure, superconducting and magnetic properties of Ru1-xFexSr2GdCu2O8

TL;DR

This study investigates how Fe substitution affects the crystal structure, superconducting, and magnetic properties of Ru1-xFexSr2GdCu2O8, revealing that increased Fe reduces transition temperatures and causes subtle structural changes.

Contribution

It provides detailed analysis of Fe's impact on structural and physical properties, highlighting site occupancy and transition temperature variations in Ru1-xFexSr2GdCu2O8.

Findings

Fe substitutes in both Ru and Cu sites.

Increasing Fe lowers superconducting and magnetic transition temperatures.

Structural bond angles show minimal changes with Fe doping.

Abstract

Samples of the Ru1-xFexSr2GdCu2O8 system with x = 0, 0.025, 0.05, 0.075, 0.1 and 0.2, were prepared and their structural, superconducting and magnetic properties were studied. Rietveld refinement of the X-ray diffraction patterns show that the Fe substitution occurs in both Ru and Cu sites. An increase of Fe concentration produces no significant changes in the bond angle Ru-O(3)-Ru, which is a measure of the rotation of the RuO6 octahedra around the c-axis, and also in the bond angle Ru-O(1)-Cu, which is a measure of the canting of the RuO6 octahedra. On the other hand, the bond angle Cu-O(2)-Cu, which is a measure of the buckling of the CuO2 layer, has a slight tendency to decrease with the increase of the Fe content. We found thet both ferromagnetic and superconducting transition temperatures are reduced with the increase of Fe concentration. Analisys related to the decay of the superconducting and ferromagnetic states is presented.