Crystal growth and magnetic properties of equiatomic CeAl

International Conference on Strongly Correlated Electron Systems 2014

Das, Pranab Kumar^1,2 ; Thamizhavel, A.^1

Department of Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Colaba, Mumbai

400 005, India^1

Istituto Officina Dei Materiali (IOM)-CNR, Laboratorio TASC, Area Science Park, S.S.14, Km 163.5, Trieste

I-34149, Italy^2

关键词: Crystallographic directions;    Electrical resistivity datum;    Heat capacity measurements;    Inverse magnetic susceptibility;    Isothermal magnetization;    Powder X ray diffraction;    Residual resistivity ratios;    Spin-disorder scattering;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/592/1/012009/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1742-6596/592/1/012009

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

Single crystal of CeAl has been grown by flux method using Ce-Al self-flux. Several needle like single crystals were obtained and the length of the needle corresponds to the [001] crystallographic direction. Powder x-ray diffraction revealed that CeAl crystallizes in orthorhombic CrB-type structure with space group Cmcm (no. 63). The magnetic properties have been investigated by means of magnetic susceptibility, isothermal magnetization, electrical transport, and heat capacity measurements. CeAl is found to order antiferromagnetically with a Neel temperature TN=10 K. The magnetization data below the ordering temperature reveals two metamagentic transitions for fields less than 20 kOe. From the inverse magnetic susceptibility an effective moment of 2.66 μB/Ce has been estimated, which indicates that Ce is in its trivalent state. Electrical resistivity data clearly shows a sharp drop at 10 K due to the reduction of spin disorder scattering of conduction electrons thus confirming the magnetic ordering. The estimated residual resistivity ratio (RRR) is 33, thus indicating a good quality of the single crystal. The bulk nature of the magnetic ordering is also confirmed by heat capacity data. From the Schottky anomaly of the heat capacity we have estimated the crystal field level splitting energies of the (2J + 1) degenerate ground state as 25 K and 175 K respectively for the fist and second excited states.