Solid-State Structures and Properties of Europium and Samarium Hydrides

The structural chemistry of europium and samarium hydrides in the solid state is very rich, ranging from typical ionic hydrides following the hydride-fluoride analogy to complex transition metal hydrides and interstitial hydrides. While crystal structure, electrical, and magnetic properties suggest that europium is divalent in all hydrides investigated so far, samarium is easily transformed to a trivalent oxidation state in its hydrides and shows similarities to other lanthanide(III) hydrides. The problem of neutron absorption of europium and samarium, hampering crystal structure solution and limiting the available structural information, is discussed in detail, and practical solutions for neutron diffraction experiments are given.