Bulk Physical Properties of a Magnetic Weyl Semimetal Candidate NdAlGe Grown by a Laser Floating-Zone Method

In this study, we report the successful growth of single crystals of a magnetic Weyl semimetal candidate NdAlGe with the space group I41md. The crystals were grown using a floating-zone technique, which used five laser diodes, with a total power of 2 kW, as the heat source. To ensure that the molten zone was stably formed during the growth, we employed a bell-shaped distribution profile of the vertical irradiation intensity. After the nominal powder, crushed from an arc-melted ingot, was shaped under hydrostatic pressure, we sintered the feed and seed rods in an Ar atmosphere under ultra-low oxygen partial pressure (