Structure and magnetism of GdRuGe

The ternary germanide GdRuGe was synthesized from the elements by arc-melting and its structure was refined from single crystal X-ray diffractometer data: TiNiSi type, space group Pnma, a = 709.3 ( 2 ) , b = 442.9 ( 1 ) , c = 723.3 ( 2 )  pm, w R 2 = 0.0491 , 547 F 2 values, 20 variables. The ruthenium and germanium atoms build up a three-dimensional [RuGe] polyanionic network with strongly distorted, corner-sharing RuGe 4 / 4 tetrahedra with Ru–Ge distances ranging from 252 to 260 pm. The gadolinium atoms fill voids with coordination number 16 within the [RuGe] network. GdRuGe orders ferromagnetically around 70 K and exhibits complete saturation of the Gd moments at 5 K in the isothermal magnetization measurements. The compound also exhibits a moderate magnetocaloric effect, Δ S = 2 J / mol K (for Δ H = 30 kOe and T = T C = 70 K ).