SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF NEW RARE-EARTH ELEMENT IRON-ANTIMONY SKUTTERUDITES SYNTHESIZED USING MULTILAYER PRECURSORS

We have synthesized a series of stable and metastable rare earth eleme nt-iron antimonides, controlling both composition and structure using multilayer reactants. The stable rare earth iron element antimonides h ave the filled skutterudite structure (LaFe4P12) with a stoichiometry of 1 for the rare earth element. The metastable rare earth element-iro n antimonides could be prepared with the entire sequence of rare earth elements, The lattice parameters of these metastable compounds were a lways larger than those of the corresponding more stable analog, and t he occupancy of the rare earth element cation was found to be less tha n 1. Reitveld analysis of Lu1-xFe4Sb12 suggests that the late rare ear th element compounds have a new distorted filled skutterudite structur e, Structural trends are discussed in terms of their potential use as thermoelectric materials.