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-硼碳化物及其相关系统中磁性、超导和重费米子行为之间的共存和竞争。我们将继续使用PI开发的新型电容式膨胀仪(现已在洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室、艾姆斯实验室和国家强磁场实验室常规使用)测量热膨胀和磁致伸缩。这些测量将使我们能够绘制相图，并从热力学上表征这些材料的低温状态之间的相变。我们的测量还将与现有的比热测量结合在一起进行格吕内森分析，该分析将表征这些迷人材料的特征能量的体积依赖关系。本科生来自不同的人才池，他们将参与这项工作的方方面面，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。非技术性：从电动马达到大容量磁盘驱动器，磁性材料是我们日益科技的社会的内在组成部分。另一方面，超导有望在电力传输和高速运输等多个领域取得重大技术进步。磁性和超导电性通常是相互排斥的，因此研究这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态是重要的。这个项目将支持我们继续努力研究这些现象，使用PI开发的新的电容式膨胀仪测量热膨胀(目前在洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室、艾姆斯实验室和国家强磁场实验室经常使用)。这些测量将使我们能够更好地了解构成这些重要物质状态的竞争相互作用，绘制相图，并从热力学上描述低温相之间的转变。从西方学院(洛杉矶的一所小型文理学院)的不同人才池中挑选的本科生将参与这项工作的方方面面，既包括在我们的校园实验室，也包括在研究旅行期间，与我们的合作伙伴在他们的家乡机构工作。这样，我们的学生将同时接触到“小”科学和“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.