Tunable thermal expansion and magnetism in Zr-doped ScF 3
The negative thermal expansion (NTE) behavior provides us an opportunity to design materials with controllable coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE). In this letter, we report a tunable isotropic thermal expansion in the cubic (Sc 1-x Zr x )F 3+δ over a wide temperature and CTE range ($α$ l = -4.0 to+ 16.8 x 10 -6 K -1 , 298–648 K). The thermal expansion can be well adjusted from strong negative to zero, and finally to large positive. Intriguingly, isotropic zero thermal expansion ($α$ l = 2.6 x 10 -7 K -1 , 298–648 K) has been observed in the composition of (Sc 0.8 Zr 0.2 )F 3+δ . The controllable thermal expansion in (Sc 1-x Zr x )F 3+δ is correlated to the local structural distortion. Interestingly, the ordered magnetic behavior has been found in the zero thermal expansion compound of (Sc 0.8 Zr 0.2 )F 3+δ at room temperature, which presumably correlates with the unpaired electron of the lower chemical valence of Zr cation. We conclude the present study provides a useful reference to control the thermal expansion and explore the multi-functionalization for NTE materials.