Preparation and processing of rare earth chalcogenides

Rare earth chalcogenides are initially prepared by a direct combination of the pure rare earth metal and the pure chalogen element with or without a catalyst. The use of iodine (10 to 100 mg) as a fluxing agent (catalyst), especially to prepare heavy lanthanide chalcogenides, greatly speeds up the formation of the rare earth chalcogenide. The resultant powders are consolidated by melting, pressure assisted sintering (PAS), or pressure assisted reaction sintering (PARS) to obtain near theoretical density solids, Mechanical alloying is a useful technique for preparing ternary alloys. In addition, mechanical alloying and mechanical milling can be used to form metastable allotropic forms of the yttrium and heavy lanthanide sulfides. Chemical analysis techniques are also described because it is strongly recommended that samples prepared by melting should have their chemical compositions verified because of chalogen losses in the melting step.