We have prepared and investigated the superconducting equimolar alloys TiZrNb, TiZrNbHf and TiZrNbHfTa, which exhibit transition temperatures T_c between 6.4 K and 8.4 K, and examined the influence of hydrogenation on their superconductivity. The upper critical magnetic field H_c2 of alloys was estimated to be above 10 T, in agreement with previous studies of superconducting alloys of similar composition. On the other hand, the hydrogenation of alloys, some of which appear to be promising for hydrogen storage, lead to suppression of superconductivity in TiZrNb, TiZrNbHf and TiZrNbHfTa dihydrides and in TiZrNbHfTa monohydride, and no transition to superconducting state was observed therein above 2 K. A possible reason for this may be related to the high concentration of disorder (defects) in hydrides originating from the preparation method during which the starting alloy disintegrates into fine powder.

Giant magnetocaloric (GMC) materials constitute a requirement for near-room-temperature magnetic re-frigeration. (Fe,Mn)2(P,Si) is a GMC compound with strong magnetoelastic coupling. The main hindrance towards application of this material is a comparably large temperature hysteresis, which can be reduced by metal site substitution with a nonmagnetic element. However, the (Fe,Mn)2(P,Si) compound has two equally populated metal sites, the tetrahedrally coordinated 3 f and the pyramidally coordinated 3g sites. The magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of such compounds are highly sensitive to the site-specific occupancy of the magnetic atoms. Here we have attempted to study separately the effect of 3 f and 3g site substitution with equal amounts of vanadium. Using formation energy calculations, the site preference of vanadium and its influence on the magnetic phase formation are described. A large difference in the isothermal entropy change (as high as 44%) with substitution in the 3 f and 3g sites is observed. The role of the lattice parameter change with temperature and the strength of the magnetoelastic coupling on the magnetic properties are highlighted.

The vast compositional space in cubic Cr₂₃C₆-type compounds (space group Fm3¯m) opens up possibilities to tune properties by performing substitutions. In this study, the magnetic properties have been explored in a selected (Mn,Co)₂₃B₆-compound by the means of synchrotron X-ray diffraction, neutron powder diffraction, magnetometry and electronic structure calculations. Refinements of a structural model based on combined X-ray and neutron diffraction data revealed mixed metal occupancies at all metal positions. However, two sites were richer in Co and the other two showed an abundance of Mn. The magnetic characteristics showed a ferrimagnetic structure below 550 K, with the magnetic moments aligned along the crystallographic c-direction and the magnetic moments on corner atoms having an opposite direction compared to the rest, within the magnetic space group I4∕mm′m′. The total magnetic moments extracted from magnetometry and neutron diffraction data gave similar values at 6 K, 20.1 and 18.2 μ_B/f.u., respectively. Results from electronic structure calculations are in reasonable agreement with the experimental findings.

The atomic and magnetic structures of Mn(Co,Ge)2 are reported herein. The system crystallizes in the space group P63/mmc as a superstructure of the MgZn2-type structure. The system exhibits two magnetic transitions with associated magnetic structures, a ferromagnetic (FM) structure around room temperature, and an incommensurate structure at lower temperatures. The FM structure, occurring between 193 and 329 K, is found to be a member of the magnetic space group P63/mm′c′. The incommensurate structure found below 193 K is helical with propagation vector k = (0 0 0.0483). Crystallographic results are corroborated by magnetic measurements and ab initio calculations. 

In this study, the crystal structure and phase stability of gas atomized equiatomic AlCoCrFeNi powder was investigated. This alloy is usually described as a high entropy alloy forming a solid solution phase stabilized by a high mixing entropy. However, thermodynamic calculations show that the high entropy phase is stable only at very high temperatures close to the melting point and that a mixture of several phases are the most stable state at lower temperatures. This suggest that kinetic effects may influence the phase composition of atomized powder. The unique features of X-ray diffraction, neutron diffraction as well as transmission electron microscopy were used to study the atomic structure of the atomized powder in detail. The results show that the powder crystallises in an ordered B2 (CsCl-type) structure with a preferred site occupation of Al and Fe on the (1/2 1/2 1/2) position and Co and Ni on the (0 0 0) position. During heat-treatment of the powder, the B2 phase decomposes into fcc and sigma phases and the final phase composition is highly dependent on the heating rate. The effect of heat-treatment on the atomized powder was also investigated and revealed a significant phase transformation with e.g. the formation of sigma phase preferably at the surface of the powder particles. The phase content was also dependent on the size fraction of the powder particles. Sintering of green bodies made with different heat cycles showed that the phase composition of the starting material had a significant impact on the final phase composition and microstructure of the sintered components. The results illustrate the importance of well-defined powder materials for powder consolidation, especially additive manufacturing (binder jetting) of high entropy alloys.

Skyrmion stabilization in novel magnetic systems with the B20 crystal structure is reported here, primarily based on theoretical results. The focus is on the effect of alloying on the 3d sublattice of the B20 structure by substitution of heavier 4d and 5d elements, with the ambition to tune the spin-orbit coupling and its influence on magnetic interactions. State-of-the-art methods based on density functional theory are used to calculate both isotropic and anisotropic exchange interactions. Significant enhancement of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction is reported for 5d-doped FeSi and CoSi, accompanied by a large modification of the spin stiffness and spiralization. Micromagnetic simulations coupled to atomistic spin-dynamics and ab initio magnetic interactions reveal the spin-spiral nature of the magnetic ground state and field-induced skyrmions for all these systems. Especially small skyrmions ∼50nm are predicted for Co_0.75Os_0.25Si, compared to ∼148nm for Fe_0.75Co_0.25Si. Convex-hull analysis suggests that all B20 compounds considered here are structurally stable at elevated temperatures and should be possible to synthesize. This prediction is confirmed experimentally by synthesis and structural analysis of the Ru-doped CoSi systems discussed here, both in powder and in single-crystal forms.

Alloys of AlCoCrFeMnxNi (x = 0.0, 0.04, 0.08, 0.12 and 0.16) have been synthesized through arc-melting and gas atomisation (x = 0.0 and 0.16) to investigate the effect of Mn additions to AlCoCrFeNi. Here, the structure, magnetic properties and the thermal stability of the alloys is presented. Electron microscopy confirmed the elemental composition and revealed the microstructure to consist of two spinodally decomposed phases. Rietveld analysis of standard powder X-ray diffraction showed the arc-melted samples consisted of two phases, a B2 phase and a bcc phase while the gas atomised powders consisted of a singlephased B2 structure. Magnetic measurements revealed an increase in the saturation magnetisation at room temperature by 68% for AlCoCrFeMnNi compared to AlCoCrFeNi. The thermal stability of the alloys was investigated using magnetometry, differential scanning calorimetry and in-situ X-ray diffraction, which showed that an increase in Mn content adversely effected the thermal stability of the alloy.

Entropy stabilised materials have possibilities for tailoring functionalities to overcome challenges in materials science. The concept of configurational entropy can also be applied to metal oxides, but it is unclear whether these could be considered as solid solutions in the case of perovskite-structured oxides and if the configurational entropy plays a stabilising role. In this study, compositionally complex perovskite oxides, LnMO₃ (Ln ​= ​La, Nd, Sm, Ca and Sr, M ​= ​Ti, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, and Cu), are investigated for their phase stability and magnetic behaviour. Phase-pure samples were synthesised, and the room temperature structures were found to crystallise in either Pnma or R3c space groups, depending on the composition and the resulting tolerance factor, while the structural transition temperatures correlate with the pseudo cubic unit cell volume. The techniques used included diffraction with X-rays and neutrons, both ex- and in-situ, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, magnetometry as well as electron microscopy. Neutron diffraction studies on one sample reveal that no oxygen vacancies are found in the structure and that the magnetic properties are ferrimagnetic-like with magnetic moments mainly coupled antiferromagnetically along the crystallographic c-direction. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy gave indications of the oxidation states of the constituting ions where several mixed oxidation states are observed in these valence-compensated perovskites.