Resistive and calorimetric investigations of an insulating quasicrystal i-AlPdRe

We report on resistivity, magnetic susceptibility, and very low-T specific heat (C-p) of a i-AlPdRe quasicrytalline sample which, from resistivity mea surements, is believed to lie on the insulating side of a metalinsulator (M I) transition. We find an electronic contribution to C-p. which possibly ob eys a gamma T variation above 1 K but follows a power Ta law (a similar to 0.1-0.3) below 1 K, in agreement with early results obtained for systems cr ossing the MI transition. We point out the dependence of the lattice term o n the method of sample preparation. Finally, from a comparative study of i- AlCuFe and i-ALPdMn systems, we show that the large nuclear hyperfine speci fic heat in AlPdRe, dominant below 300 mK, is of quadrupolar origin, due on ly to the Re nuclei.