EXAFS investigation of the local structure in URu 2-x Fe x Si 2 : Evidence for distortions below 100 K
X-ray absorption measurements at the U L III , Ru K , and Fe K edges are reported for the hidden order (HO) material URu 2 - x Fe x Si 2 ( x = 0 , 0.05, 0.08, 0.10, 0.12, 0.15, and 0.20) as a function of x and temperature T . Furthermore, when Fe is substituted for Ru, the local structure about Fe shrinks slightly and the first neighbor Fe-Si bond length decreases by ≈ 0.05 Å . More importantly excess disorder is observed below 80–100 K (the coherence temperature T * ) in plots of the Debye-Waller factor σ 2 ( σ is the width of the pair distribution function); at low T the data deviate from the usual Einstein or correlated-Debye model plots. This excess disorder is most prominent for the Ru-Si bond, and σ 2 actually increases below 80 K. These results suggest a local orthorhombic distortion with B 1 g -like symmetry that develops below 80–100 K. A model that describes these local distortions is presented, and discussed in terms of other measurements that indicate a breaking of fourfold symmetry at low T . In addition, the square root of the difference between σ 2 ( T ) for the Ru-Si pair and a Debye fit to these data serves as an order parameter for this orthorhombic distortion, in the temperature range below 100 K. This quantity is a length related to a - b , the difference between the a and b lattice constants in the orthorhombic phase, and provides a connection between this distortion and T * . X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) measurements also show that there are no changes in the edge positions down to 0.1 eV for any edge as a function of x , for T in the HO regime.