Materials Chemistry and Physics, Vol.229, 482-488, 2019
Structural investigation of La2SrDyCu2Oy complexities
The structural complexities in lanthanum cuprates family were revisited with the aim of understanding factors that structurally triggers long-range repulsive Coulomb interactions. In this study, polycrystalline samples of La2SrDyCu2Oy (LSDCO) were prepared via solid-state synthesis using high purity chemicals. The X-ray diffraction experiment revealed an unusual structural anomaly in the [2 0 5] and [2 1 3] planes of the crystal lattice. The lattice system was further probed using the Niggli-reduced cell at gamma = 6.0678. It was observed that grain boundaries leading to electron trapping originates from the CuO2 plane while the mesoscopic phase separation is controlled by the cell type and axial value in the x- and y-axes of the crystal lattice. Although the research partly supports popular findings that the main positive lobes of LSDCO are centered on the z-axis, it observed that the negative lobe is located in a ring-like structure along the X-Y plane. This result is particularly interesting because it shows the likely origin of broken symmetry in LSDCO sample. The ion bombardment analysis shows that the LSDCO electron-phonon ratio was 8:5. The microstructural analysis of the LSDCO sample was observed to have magnetic field strength of 1.5 kA/m. LSDCO sample possess enormous structural mystery that may interest further studies beyond superconductivity.