New Angles on Actinide Quantum Materials

While actinide materials have seen an enormous swell of interest in recent years due to the surprising and fascinating quantum properties of materials such as UTe₂, this interest has largely been confined to a small set of compounds. The intrinsic obstacles to research the actinides present has greatly limited broader explorations into novel materials, novel analytical methods, and manipulation of actinide isotopics. Savannah River National Laboratory, in light of its unique position ameliorating many of the difficulties of actinide research, has pursued a research effort to begin those broader explorations.<br/><br/>Utilizing primarily chemical vapor transport and flux synthesis methods, SRNL has generated a number of actinide-based quantum materials, both those subject to contemporary mainstream interest and those which have been neglected for decades with insufficient characterization. High-quality crystals of materials such as UTe₃ have been prepared and characterized at much higher levels of fidelity than possible at the time of their discovery, clarifying disagreements in the existing literature and revealing new and compelling magnetic features. SRNL also plans to prepare a series of UTe₂ samples with tailored uranium isotopics, including the use of highly enriched uranium, enabling an unprecedented investigation of the impact of nuclear spin on the unusual quantum properties of that material.<br/><br/>Most importantly, this work results from the establishment of an actinide-based quantum material synthetic capability which will allow the synthesis of entirely new materials, including with actinides other than uranium. The richly complex correlation effects endemic to actinide species will no doubt lead to novel and intriguing quantum properties, offering a whole new realm of investigation.