Single crystal growth of URu2si2 by the modified bridgman technique

Abstract

We describe a modified Bridgman growth technique to produce single crystals of the strongly correlated electron material URu2Si2 and its nonmagnetic analogue ThRu2Si2. Bulk thermodynamic and electrical transport measurements show that the properties of crystals produced in this way are comparable to those previously synthesized using the Czochralski or conventional molten metal flux growth techniques. For the specimens reported here, we find residual resistivity ratios RRR = ρ300K/ρ0 as large as 116 and 187 for URu2Si2 and ThRu2Si2, respectively.