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Strongly Correlated Electron Behavior In Transition Metal Intermetallics: Enhanced Thermoelectricity And Quantum Criticality In Fega₃ And Superconductivity In Nibi₃, Neel Saman Kumara Haldolaarachchige

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

TGa3 (T = Fe, Ru & Os) and RuIn3 are a class of isostructural intermetallic binary compounds with interesting physical and structural properties. These materials are non-magnetic, narrow band gap semiconductors with large n-type thermopower below room temperature. Chemical doping drastically changes physical properties and thermoelectric properties enhances by large percentage over the pure compounds. An important structural feature of FeGa3 is the fact that the four Fe atoms per unit cell exist as two Fe-Fe dimers. The nonmagnetic (NM) ground state of FeGa3 may be a consequence of the dimer spins being aligned in an antiparallel singlet state. We …