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Page 6 of 7 Sun et al. Microstructures 2023;3:2023028 https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/microstructures.2023.03

Figure 4. (A) Contour plot of the SXRD intensity for TECM compound. (B) Full profile Rietveld refinements of the SXRD patterns for the
TECM compound at 100 K and 275 K. (The illustration shows the enlarged area. The experimental profiles are shown by star markers.
Bragg reflections are indicated by ticks. Pink lines represent the calculated data, while black lines represent the difference between the
observed and calculated data.) (C) Temperature dependence of the lattice parameters a, c, and V of TECM measured by SXRD. (The
amounts of a and c/ (a and c are the lattice parameters of the rhombohedra) are equivalent to the cubic amounts).

attributed to magnetic-structural transition below T . The TECM compound shows a cubic (Fd-3m)
C
structure above T while transforming to rhomboidal (R-3m) below T . TECM has a wide temperature
C
C
window of the low thermal expansion curves, which offers good prospects for both basic research and
applications. This work provides structural information and near ZTE properties of the compounds
Tb Er Co Mn , which may guide future exploration of magnetic functional materials.
2
y
x
1-x
DECLARATIONS
Authors’ contributions
Conceived and designed the study: Xing X
Prepared the samples and collected the data: Sun Y
Performed data analysis and wrote the main draft of the paper: Sun Y, Cao Y, Xing X
Analyzed the thermal expansion results: Li Q, Deng J, Miao J, Lin K
Conducted the SXRD measurements: Ren Y, Lapidus SH
All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

Availability of data and materials
Not applicable.

Financial support and sponsorship
This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2020YFA0406202), the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (22275015, 22090042, 21971009, and 21731001), and the Fundamental
Research Funds for the Central Universities, China (FRF-IDRY-19-018 and FRF-BR-19-003B). This
research used resources of the Advanced Photon Source, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of
Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory.

Conflicts of interest
All authors declared that there are no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval and consent to participate
Not applicable.