Evidence for Varying<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi>d</mml:mi></mml:math>-Band Occupancy across the Trivalent Rare-Earth Series

Abstract

The resistivity of liquid Lu, which has been measured for the first time up to 1800\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}C, has a negative temperature coefficient. In the framework of structural-disorder scattering this means that $2{k}_{\mathrm{F}}$, the diameter of the Fermi sphere of conduction electrons, lies close to the wave number ${K}_{p}$ of the first peak of the structure factor. This is consistent with recent band-structure calculations by Duthie and Pettifor providing good evidence that the number of $s$ electrons per atom changes from about 0.5 for La to 1.5 for Lu.