No Arabic abstract
We analyze theoretically a common experimental process used to obtain the magnetic contribution to the specific heat of a given magnetic material. In the procedure, the specific heat of a non-magnetic analog is measured and used to subtract the non-magnetic contributions, which are generally dominated by the lattice degrees of freedom in a wide range of temperatures. We calculate the lattice contribution to the specific heat for the magnetic compounds GdMIn$_5$ (M = Co, Rh) and for the non-magnetic YMIn$_5$ and LaMIn$_5$ (M = Co, Rh), using density functional theory based methods. We find that the best non-magnetic analog for the subtraction depends on the magnetic material and on the range of temperatures. While the phonon specific heat contribution of YRhIn$_5$ is an excellent approximation to the one of GdCoIn$_5$ in the full temperature range, for GdRhIn$_5$ we find a better agreement with LaCoIn$_5$, in both cases, as a result of an optimum compensation effect between masses and volumes. We present measurements of the specific heat of the compounds GdMIn$_5$ (M = Co, Rh) up to room temperature where it surpasses the value expected from the Dulong-Petit law. We obtain a good agreement between theory and experiment when we include anharmonic effects in the calculations.
The discovery in 2001 of superconductivity in some heavy fermion compounds of the RMIn$_5$ (R=4f or 5f elements, M=Co, Rh, Ir) family, has triggered enormous amount of research pointing to understand the physical origin of superconductivity and its relation with magnetism. Although many properties have been clarified, there are still crutial questions that remain unanswered. One of these questions is the particular role of the transition metal in determining the value of critical superconducting temperature (Tc). In this work, we analyse an interesting regularity that is experimentally observed in this family of compounds, where the lowest Neel temperatures are obtained in the Co-based materials. We focus our analysis on the GdMIn$_5$ compounds and perform density-functional-theory based total-energy calculations to obtain the parameters for the exchange coupling interactions between the magnetic moments located at the Gd$^{3+}$ ions. Our calculations indicate that the ground state of the three compounds is a $C$-type antiferromagnet determined by the competition between the first- and second-neighbor exchange couplings inside GdIn$_3$ planes and stabilized by the couplings across MIn$_2$ planes. We then solve a model with these magnetic interactions using a mean-field approximation and Quantum Monte Carlo simulations. The results obtained for the calculated Neel and Curie-Weiss temperatures, the specific heat and the magnetic susceptibility are in very good agreement with the existent experimental data. Remarkably, we show that the first neighbor interplane exchange coupling in the Co-based material is much smaller than in the Rh and Ir analogues due to a more two dimensional behaviour in the former. This result explains the observed lower Neel temperature in Co-115 systems and may shed light on the fact that the Co-based 115 superconductors present the highest Tc.
Computational design of more efficient rare earth/transition metal (RE-TM) permanent magnets requires accurately calculating the magnetocrystalline anisotropy (MCA) at finite temperature, since this property places an upper bound on the coercivity. Here, we present a first-principles methodology to calculate the MCA of RE-TM magnets which fully accounts for the effects of temperature on the underlying electrons. The itinerant electron TM magnetism is described within the disordered local moment picture, and the localized RE-4f magnetism is described within crystal field theory. We use our model, which is free of adjustable parameters, to calculate the MCA of the RCo$_5$ (R=Y, La-Gd) magnet family for temperatures 0--600 K. We correctly find a huge uniaxial anisotropy for SmCo$_5$ (21.3 MJm$^{-3}$ at 300 K) and two finite temperature spin reorientation transitions for NdCo$_5$. The calculations also demonstrate dramatic valency effects in CeCo$_5$ and PrCo$_5$. Our calculations provide quantitative, first-principles insight into several decades of RE-TM experimental studies.
Ferrimagnetic Y$_3$Fe$_5$O$_{12}$ (YIG) is the prototypical material for studying magnonic properties due to its exceptionally low damping. By substituting the yttrium with other rare earth elements that have a net magnetic moment, we can introduce an additional spin degree of freedom. Here, we study the magnetic coupling in epitaxial Y$_3$Fe$_5$O$_{12}$/Gd$_3$Fe$_5$O$_{12}$ (YIG/GIG) heterostructures grown by pulsed laser deposition. From bulk sensitive magnetometry and surface sensitive spin Seebeck effect (SSE) and spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) measurements, we determine the alignment of the heterostructure magnetization through temperature and external magnetic field. The ferromagnetic coupling between the Fe sublattices of YIG and GIG dominates the overall behavior of the heterostructures. Due to the temperature dependent gadolinium moment, a magnetic compensation point of the total bilayer system can be identified. This compensation point shifts to lower temperatures with increasing thickness of YIG due the parallel alignment of the iron moments. We show that we can control the magnetic properties of the heterostructures by tuning the thickness of the individual layers, opening up a large playground for magnonic devices based on coupled magnetic insulators. These devices could potentially control the magnon transport analogously to electron transport in giant magnetoresistive devices.
We present a detailed characterization of the recently discovered i-$R$-Cd ($R$ = Y, Gd-Tm) binary quasicrystals by means of x-ray diffraction, temperature-dependent dc and ac magnetization, temperature-dependent resistance and temperature-dependent specific heat measurements. Structurally, the broadening of x-ray diffraction peaks found for i-$R$-Cd is dominated by frozen-in phason strain, which is essentially independent of $R$. i-Y-Cd is weakly diamagnetic and manifests a temperature-independent susceptibility. i-Gd-Cd can be characterized as a spin-glass below 4.6 K via dc magnetization cusp, a third order non-linear magnetic susceptibility peak, a frequency-dependent freezing temperature and a broad maximum in the specific heat. i-$R$-Cd ($R$ = Ho-Tm) is similar to i-Gd-Cd in terms of features observed in thermodynamic measurements. i-Tb-Cd and i-Dy-Cd do not show a clear cusp in their zero-field-cooled dc magnetization data, but instead show a more rounded, broad local maximum. The resistivity for i-$R$-Cd is of order 300 $mu Omega$ cm and weakly temperature-dependent. The characteristic freezing temperatures for i-$R$-Cd ($R$ = Gd-Tm) deviate from the de Gennes scaling, in a manner consistent with crystal electric field splitting induced local moment anisotropy.
The antiferromagnetic transition is investigated in the rare-earth (R) tritelluride RTe3 family of charge density wave (CDW) compounds via specific heat, magnetization and resistivity measurements. Observation of the opening of a superzone gap in the resistivity of DyTe3 indicates that additional nesting of the reconstructed Fermi surface in the CDW state plays an important role in determining the magnetic structure.