A review on the synthesis, crystal growth, structure and physical properties of rare earth based quaternary intermetallic compounds

This review highlights the synthesis and crystal growth of quaternary intermetallic compounds based on rare earth metals. In the first part of this review, we highlight briefly about intermetallics and their versatile properties in comparison to the constituent elements. In the next part, we have discussed about various synthesis techniques with more focus on the metal flux technique towards the well shaped crystal growth of novel compounds. In the subsequent parts, several disordered quaternary compounds have been reviewed and then outlined most known ordered quaternary compounds with their complex structure. A special attention has been given to the ordered compounds with structural description and relation to the parent binary and ternary compounds. The importance of electronic and structural feature is highlighted as the key roles in designing these materials for emerging applications. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.