STUDY OF THE EFG TRENDS IN ZR2T (T=FE, CO, NI) INTERMETALLIC COMPOUNDS

We use the linear muffin-tin orbital formalism, in the atomic sphere a pproximation, to investigate the trends of the electric field gradient (EFG) at the nucleus for the non-equivalent sites in Zr2T (T = Fe, Co and Ni) intermetallic compounds. As all those compounds crystallize i n the same C16 crystallographic structure, they offer a rare opportuni ty to investigate electronic structure effects coming from transition metals on the EFG at Zr site. Those results are compared with EFG valu es obtained from quadrupole coupling constant measurements performed w ith the time differential perturbed angular correlation (TDPAC) techni que, using the Ta-181 probe.