The 13th Global Conference on
Materials Science and Engineering (CMSE 2024)

Abstract: The study of intermetallic compounds has a long history. These alloys and compounds consist of billions of microscopic elementary particles: electrons, neutrons, protons, quantized lattice vibrations known as phonons, and many others. The physical properties of macroscopic intermetallic compounds cannot be explained completely only by simple extrapolation of the behaviour of mentioned individual elementary particles, even on the basis of statistical physics. Interesting and new properties emerge from a quantum arrangement of particles. This is what attracts scientists to explore condensed matter physics, which is the most active field related to strongly correlated electron systems. In the early years of the 20th century, the study of physical properties in the low-temperature range started to develop. It is related to the emergent behaviour of matter due to the laws of quantum mechanics. When the temperature approaches zero kelvin, the highly correlated state of the electron system arises. This is usually caused by the enhanced electronic density of electron levels close to the Fermi energy in metals, especially in sharp 4f electronic states in rare earth elements. The emerging field of study is arising due to undergoing quantum phase transitions. A fascinating variety of temperature values and magnetic field properties can be observed in the vicinity of the quantum phase transition. Therefore, new physics has appeared. This is one of the reasons why we decided to study such a system in condensed matter physics. The mentioned phenomena, which can arise at the level of quantum mechanics effects, led our group to study the selected intermetallic systems. These materials belong to a group of advanced materials and potential magnetic actuators. Polycrystalline samples based on Yb were prepared, and their interesting physical properties were studied. All of them were prepared by the same method – the inductive melting process. In all studied samples, attractive physical properties could be found by using different scientific methods. Moreover, rare earth materials may become a possible basis for future applications.

Keywords: Physical Properties, Magnetism, Rare-earth.

Acknowledgements: This research work was supported partially by VEGA 1/0705/20, VEGA 1/0404/21 and VEGA 1/0180/23.

Biography: Dr. Andrea Dzubinska is a young post-doctoral physicist. She completed her PhD. in Physics in 2020 under cotutelle regime between the University of Pavol Jozef Safarik in Kosice, Slovakia and the University of Cantabria in Santander, Spain. The PhD. thesis focused on rare-earth materials based on Gd, Ce and Yb. She received an award at the price of Stefan Jedlik for the best PhD. work in the field of application magnetism.

Further, during her research career, she obtained a three times prize in the Slovak Physical Society – Competition of Scientific Work of Young Physicists of Slovakia (2nd place in 2020, 3rd place in 2018, and 3rd place in 2022). After obtaining PhD., she spent several months at the University of País Vasco, San Sebastián, Spain. Dr. Dzubinska was a Guest Editor of the journal Alloys of the special issue "Transport, Electric and Magnetic Properties of Intermetallic Alloys“, and present-day she is a Guest Editor of the journal Metals of the special issue "Magnetocaloric Effect and Magnetocaloric Materials- Fundamentals and Applications".

Nowadays, she is working in the group of prof. Varga. Her research interest has also spread to magnetic microwires with the potential for technical application. She wants to continue in research by taking advantage of interdisciplinarity in material science in the future.