United Press International
04-18-07
New family of zinc compounds discovered
AMES, Iowa, April 18 (UPI) -- U.S. government scientists have discovered a new family of zinc compounds that can be manipulated to acquire some physical properties of other materials.
The researchers -- Paul Canfield and Sergey Bud'ko of the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory , in collaboration with Iowa State University graduate student Shuang Jia -- have discovered the new family of zinc compounds can assume some physical properties and behaviors of other materials, including copper and palladium.
The versatility makes the new zinc compounds ideal for basic research efforts to observe and learn more about the origins of phenomena such as magnetism, said Canfield.
"We can make compounds for up to 10 transition metals, and for each of those we can include between seven and 14 rare earths," said Canfield. "So that's between 70 and 140 compounds."
The study has received advanced publication from the journal Nature Physics and can be accessed at http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/vaop/ncurrent/index.html.