[en] Electric and magnetic properties ; Mossbauer spectroscopy
[en] Ln4FeGa12, where Ln is Y, Tb, Dy, Ho, and Er, prepared by flux growth, crystallize with the cubic Y4PdGa12 structure with the space group and with a = 8.5650(4), 8.5610(4), 8.5350(3), 8.5080(3), and 8.4720(4) Å, respectively. The crystal structure consists of an iron-gallium octahedra and face sharing rare-earth cuboctahedra of the Au3Cu type. Y4FeGa12 exhibits weak itinerant ferromagnetism below 36 K. In contrast, Tb4FeGa12, Dy4FeGa12, Ho4FeGa12, and Er4FeGa12 order antiferromagnetically with maxima in the molar magnetic susceptibilities at 26, 18.5, 9, and 6 K. All the compounds exhibit metallic electric resistivity and their iron-57 Mössbauer spectra, obtained between 4.2 and 295 K, exhibit a single-line absorption with a 4.2 K isomer shift of ca. 0.50 mm/s, a shift that is characteristic of iron in an iron-gallium intermetallic compound. A small but significant broadening in the spectral absorption line width is observed for Y4FeGa12 below 40 K and results from the small hyperfine field arising from its spin-polarized itinerant electrons
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