“…The C15 phase has more than 1000 binary and ternary forms among the three types of Laves phases. Uniquely, only HfV 2 and UMn 2 C15 Laves phases exhibit peculiar physical and mechanical properties, including: temperature-induced structural phase transformations (Lawson & Zachariasen, 1972;Hafstrom et al, 1978;Lawson et al, 1987;Chu et al, 1996), anomalous thermal softening of elastic properties (Finlayson et al, 1978;Balankin & Skorov, 1982;Chu et al, 1994), mechanical deformation twinning in low temperatures (Livingston & Hall, 1990;Chu & Pope, 1993) and the highest superconducting temperature (T sc = 9.6 K) among intermetallics (Chu et al, 1996). For more than three decades, continuous efforts have been made to understand the observed anomalies, reveal driving mechan-isms and illustrate relationships between unusual physical properties.…”