Structure-property Relationships of Layered Oxypnictides

Investigating the structure-property relationships of solid state materials can help improve many of the materials we use each day in life. It can also lead to the discovery of materials with interesting and unforeseen properties. In this work the structure property relationships of newly discovered layered oxypnictide phases are presented and discussed. There has generally been worldwide interest in layered oxypnictide materials following the discovery of superconductivity up to 55 K for iron arsenides such as LnFeAsO 1-xFx (where Ln = Lanthanoid). This work presents efforts to understand the structure and physical property changes which occur to LnFeAsO materials when Fe is replaced with Rh or Ir and when As is replaced with Sb. As part of this work the solid solution between LaFeAsO and LaRhAsO was examined and superconductivity is observed for low Rh content with a maximum critical temperature of 16 K. Ln RhAsO and LnIrAsO compositions are found to be metallic; however Ce based compositions display a resistivity temperature dependence which is typical of Kondo lattice materials. At low temperatures a sudden drop in resistivity occurs for both CeRhAsO and CeIrAsO compositions and this drop coincides with an antiferromagnetic transition. The Kondo scattering temperatures and magnetic transition temperatures observed for these materials can be rationalized by considering the expected difference in N(EF) J parameters between them, where N(EF) is the density of states at the Fermi level and J represents the exchange interaction between the Ce 4f1 electrons and the conduction electrons. In addition to studying these 4d and 5d substituted systems the LaFeSbO compositional system was investigated. While LaFeSbO has not been successfully synthesized the transition metal free layered oxypnictide composition La2SbO 2 was discovered and its structural and physical properties have been examined along with the properties of La2BiO2. Density functional theory was used to calculate the heats of formation for competing phases within the LaFeSbO system, in order to better understand the stability of LaFeSbO and why it has not yet been observed. The materials La2SbO 2 and La2BiO2 were investigated for the presence of oxygen vacancies using powder neutron diffraction. Structure refinement reveals that there is significant disorder within the a-b plane for Sb compositions.