High-quality single crystal growth of uranium-based intermetallics

Single crystals of various uranium-based intermetallics such as UPt 3 , UPd 2 Al 3 , U 6 Fe, URu 2 Si 2 , etc., were grown by the Czochralski pulling method in a tetra-arc furnace. Subsequent annealing treatment by the solid-state electrotransport (SSE) method under ultra-high vacuum is found to be quite effective for compounds UPt 3 and CeRu 2 . The residual resistivity ratio (RRR) of CeRu 2 has been improved from 30 to about 300 after the SSE treatment. In the case of UPt 3 , the best annealing temperature is about 900°C, where RRR is increased up to 640.