Occupation Waves the Way You Have Never Seen Them: the Orthorhombic Quasicrystal Approximants RE13Zn58+δ (RE = Ho, Er, Tm, and Lu)

A series of binary quasicrystal approximants RE13Zn58+delta (RE = Ho, Er, Tm, and Lu) have been prepared, and structural studies were performed by means of single-crystal X-ray diffraction. All four compounds crystallize in the orthorhombic system, but while the Ho-containing compound crystallizes in space group Pcmn, the rest of the compounds crystallize in Pc21n. This work is a continuation of the structural studies on RE13Zn approximately 58 (RE = Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Gd, Tb, and Dy), which all belong to the hexagonal system. The sequence of RE13Zn58+delta compounds exhibits a large variability in local ordering and composition, and therefore the crystal structures are generally rather more complex than those previously reported and exhibit a number of different ordering modes. These four compounds are structurally closely related to each other.