Single crystals of intermediate valent EuPd2Si2 were grown from an Eu-rich melt by the Bridgman as well as the Czochralski technique. The chemical and structural characterization of an extracted single crystalline Czochralski-grown specimen yielded a slight variation of the Si-Pd ratio along the growth direction and confirms the existence of a finite Eu(Pd1−mSim)2Si2 homogeneity range. The thorough physical characterization carried out on the same crystal showed that this tiny variation in the composition affects the temperature Tv at which the valence transition occurs. These experiments demonstrate a strong coupling between structural and physical properties in the prototypical valence-fluctuating system EuPd2Si2 and explain the different reported values of Tv.
@article{arxiv.2203.05136,
title = {Influence of the Pd-Si ratio on the valence transition in EuPd$_2$Si$_2$ single crystals},
author = {Kristin Kliemt and Marius Peters and Isabel Reiser and Michelle Ocker and Franziska Walther and Doan-My Tran and Eunhyung Cho and Michael Merz and Amir A. Haghighirad and Dominik C. Hezel and Franz Ritter and Cornelius Krellner},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2203.05136},
year = {2026}
}