Download or read book Properties-driven Synthesis, Structural Insights, and Discovery of Complex Intermetallics and Alloys written by Iain William Herbert Oswald and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding the intimate relationship between the structure and physical properties of a material is one of the central goals of solid state chemistry. As subtle structural changes can have wide ranging effects on electrical and magnetic properties, it is necessary to fully, and correctly, characterize and elucidate the structure. This dissertation presents the results from four studies aimed at synthesizing, discovering, and structurally characterizing new complex intermetallic phases and alloys. The first study describes an investigation of structural phase transitions in the new series of magnetocaloric alloys (MnNiSi)1-x(FeCoGe)x (x = 0.36, 0.37, 0.38, 0.39, 0.40). These compounds exhibit coupled magneto-structural transitions, where ferromagnetic ordering coincides with a structural phase transition. Our results indicate the high temperature hexagonal phase (space group P63/mmc) transforms to a low temperature orthorhombic phase (space group Pnma) under ambient pressure; however, low pressure studies (