Alloying behavior of zinc with rare earth metals: The Dy–Gd–Zn system

Abstract The isothermal section at 400 °C of the Dy–Gd–Zn system was studied, and the vertical sections at the Dy/Gd ratio=1 was investigated. The experimental techniques used were Differential Thermal Analysis (DTA), X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with electron probe microanalysis (EPMA-EDX). No ternary compounds were found in the system. As regard to the intermetallic phases, the (Dy,Gd)Zn, (Dy,Gd)Zn 2 , (Dy,Gd)Zn 3 , (Dy,Gd) 3 Zn 11 , (Dy,Gd) 13 Zn 58 , (Dy,Gd) 2 Zn 17 and (Dy,Gd)Zn 12 solid solutions form in the full field of composition, while the Gd 3 Zn 22 compound did not show dysprosium dissolution.