Structure and magnetism of NaRu2O4 and Na2.7Ru4O9

The structures of NaRu2O4 and Na2.7Ru4O9 are refined using neutron diffraction. NaRu2O4 is a stoichiometric compound consisting of double chains of edge sharing RuO6 octahedra. Na2.7Ru4O9 is a non-stoichiometric compound with partial occupancy of the Na sublattice. The structure is a mixture of single, double and triple chains of edge-shared RuO6 octahedra. NaRu2O4 displays temperature independent paramagnetism with image. Na2.7Ru4O9 is paramagnetic, image=image with image and a Curie constant of 0.0119 emu/mol Oe K. Specific heat measurements reveal a small upturn at low temperatures, similar to the upturn observed in La4Ru6O19. The electronic contribution to the specific heat (γ) for Na2.7Ru4O9 was determined to be15 mJ/moleRu K2.