RUI: Magnetic and Superconducting Properties of Nickel Borocarbides

技术：该奖项将支持我们继续努力研究稀土镍硼碳化物和一些相关体系中磁性、超导性和重费米子行为之间的共存和竞争。我们将继续使用PI开发的新电容式膨胀计（现在在洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室，艾姆斯实验室和国家高磁场实验室经常使用）来测量热膨胀和磁致伸缩。这些测量将使我们能够绘制出相图，并对这些材料的低温状态之间的相变进行热力学表征。我们的测量还将与格鲁尼森分析中现有的比热测量相结合，该分析将表征这些迷人材料的特征能量的体积依赖性。本科生，从各种各样的有才华的学生中挑选出来，将参与这项工作的各个方面，从安装样本，获取和分析数据到协助我们的合作者及其机构的研究旅行。非技术：从电动机到大容量磁盘驱动器，磁性材料是我们日益科技化的社会的固有组成部分。另一方面，超导在电力传输和高速运输等不同领域拥有重大技术进步的希望。磁性和超导性通常是相互排斥的，因此研究两种现象共存和竞争的材料对于理解所涉及的基本物理和发现新的超导和磁性态是很重要的。该项目将支持我们继续努力研究这些现象，使用PI开发的新型电容式膨胀计（现在在洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室，艾姆斯实验室和国家高磁场实验室经常使用）来测量热膨胀。这些测量将使我们能够更好地理解这些重要物质状态下相互竞争的相互作用，绘制相图，并对低温相之间的转变进行热力学表征。来自西方学院（洛杉矶的一所小型文理学院）的本科生将参与这项工作的各个方面，包括在我们的校园实验室和在他们家乡机构与我们的合作者一起进行研究旅行。通过这种方式，我们的学生将接触到“小”和“大”科学的环境。

Technical :This award will support our continuing efforts to study the coexistence and competition between magnetism, superconductivity, and heavy fermion behavior in the rare-earth nickel-borocarbides and some related systems. We will continue to measure thermal expansion and magnetostriction using a new capacitive dilatometer developed by the PI (and now in regular use at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Ames Laboratory, and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory). These measurements will allow us to map out phase diagrams and thermodynamically characterize phase transitions between the low temperature states of these materials. Our measurements will also be combined with existing specific heat measurements in a Gruneisen analysis that will characterize the volume dependence of the characteristic energies of these fascinating materials. Undergraduates, drawn from a diverse pool of talented students, will participate in all aspects of this work, from installing samples, acquiring and analyzing data to assisting during research trips to our collaborators and their institutions.Non-Technical:From electric motors to high-capacity disk drives, magnetic materials are an intrinsic component of our increasingly technological society. Superconductivity, on the other hand, holds the promise of significant technological advancement in areas as diverse as power transmission and high speed transportation. Magnetism and superconductivity are usually mutually exclusive, so the study of materials in which both phenomena coexist and compete is important for understanding the basic physics involved and for finding new kinds of superconducting and magnetic states. This project will support our continuing efforts to study these phenomena with measurements of the thermal expansion using a new capacitive dilatometer developed by the PI (and now in regular use at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Ames Laboratory, and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory). These measurements will allow us to better understand the competing interactions that underlie these important states of matter, to map out phase diagrams, and to thermodynamically characterize the transitions between the low temperature phases. Undergraduates drawn from a diverse pool of talented students at Occidental College (a small liberal arts college in Los Angeles) will participate in all aspects of this work, both in our on-campus laboratory and during research trips to work with our collaborators at their home institutions. In this way our students will be exposed to the environments of both "small" and "big" science.