Regensburg 2016 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help

MA: Fachverband Magnetismus

MA 17: Poster Session I

MA 17.73: Poster

Tuesday, March 8, 2016, 09:30–12:30, Poster B1

Magnetic anisotropy and reduced neodymium magnetic moments in Nd₃Ru₄Al₁₂ — •D. Gorbunov¹, M. Henriques², A.V. Andreev², V. Eigner², A. Gukasov³, X. Fabrèges³, Y. Skourski¹, V. Petříček², and J. Wosnitza¹ — ¹Dresden High Magnetic Field Laboratory (HLD-EMFL), Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Dresden, Germany — ²Institute of Physics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic — ³Laboratoire Léon Brillouin, CE de Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

The present study addresses the magnetic properties of Nd₃Ru₄Al₁₂ (hexagonal crystal structure) with focus on its magnetic anisotropy that allows a comparison between single-ion and two-ion mechanisms when comparing to U₃Ru₄Al₁₂. Nd₃Ru₄Al₁₂ is a strongly anisotropic uniaxial ferromagnet with a Curie temperature of 39 K. The magnetic moments are aligned collinearly along the [001] axis. The magnetic structure has orthorhombic symmetry for which the crystallographic Nd site is split into two magnetically inequivalent positions, Nd1 and Nd2. The Nd1 and Nd2 atoms exhibit reduced magnetic moments, 0.95 and 2.66 µ_B, as compared to the free Nd³⁺-ion value (3.28 µ_B). We argue this being due to crystal-field effects and competing exchange and anisotropy interactions. Since the single-ion mechanism in Nd₃Ru₄Al₁₂ leads to uniaxial anisotropy and the two-ion mechanism of the actinide analog, U₃Ru₄Al₁₂, is known to lead to planar anisotropy, our study demonstrates the decisive influence of these different mechanisms on the magnetic anisotropy.