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M. Giovannini, E. Bauer, G. Hilscher, H. Michor, P. Rogl, A. Saccone:
"Effect of chemical composition on ground state properties of Ce and Yb intermetallic compounds";
Talk: International Workshop on Exotic States in Materials with Strongly Correlated Electrons, Sinaia, Romania; 2007-09-07 - 2007-09-10.

Abstract:
Strong correlation between electrons, due to hybridization of f electrons and conduction electrons, can cause a number of outstanding low temperature features. Among the rare earths, a large number of these
phenomena is found for Ce- and Yb-based compounds which behave, in some respects, in a symmetric way according to the so called electron-hole analogy. Chemical composition, as well as pressure and magnetic field, can play an important role in ground state properties of these compounds. Regarding the influence of chemical composition on physical properties of intermetallic compounds, an important question to be addressed is whether the compound is a point compound with a fixed composition or it forms in a homogeneity range. In the first case it may be worth investigating the effect of doping with other metals, whereas in the second case an investigation of the homogeneity range is an important prerequisite in order to perform a careful investigation of ground state properties. In fact, it may happen that compounds previously thought to be stoichiometric are later on recognized to be point of crystallographic order of solid solutions.
A few examples are discussed, with the aim to stress the importance of crystallochemistry and compositional phase diagrams for the challenging activity of synthesis and characterization of novel promising SCES intermetallic compounds.