1 Introduction and Motivation .................................. 1
2 Room-Temperature Synthesis and Properties of Metastable
FeSe ........................................................ 15
2.1 Introduction ........................................... 15
2.2 Experimental ........................................... 16
2.3 Results and Discussion ................................. 20
2.4 Conclusion ............................................. 31
3 Structural Trends of REFeAsO ................................ 33
3.1 Introduction ........................................... 33
3.2 Experimental ........................................... 35
3.3 Results ................................................ 37
3.4 Discussion ............................................. 42
3.5 Conclusion ............................................. 49
4 Tetragonal to Orthorhombic Transition of GdFeAsO ............ 51
4.1 Introduction ........................................... 51
4.2 Experimental ........................................... 53
4.3 Results and Discussion ................................. 53
4.4 Conclusion ............................................. 61
5 Transport Anisotropy of Large LaFeAsO Single Crystals ....... 63
5.1 Introduction ........................................... 63
5.2 Experimental ........................................... 63
5.3 Results and Discussion ................................. 64
5.4 Conclusion ............................................. 67
6 Summary and Outlook ......................................... 69
7 Acknowledgement ............................................. 71
8 List of Publications ........................................ 73
Appendices ..................................................... 75
A Treatment of Synchrotron Data ............................ 77
B Reconstruction of Reciprocal Space ....................... 81
C Evaluation of Reflection Splitting ....................... 85
D Additional X-Ray Diffraction Data ........................ 89
D.l Rietveld Refinement of FeSe ......................... 89
D.2 Single-Crystal X-ray Diffraction Data of REFeAsO .... 92
D.3 Synchrotron Data of GdFeAsO at Different
Temperatures ....................................... 100
References .................................................... 113
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