Signatures of spin-glass behaviour in PrIr2B2 and heavy fermion behaviour in PrIr2B2C |
| |
Authors: | Anupam Anand V K Hossain Z Adroja D T Geibel C |
| |
Institution: | Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India. |
| |
Abstract: | The magnetic and transport properties of PrIr(2)B(2) and PrIr(2)B(2)C have been investigated by dc and ac magnetic susceptibility, specific heat, electrical resistivity and magnetoresistance measurements. PrIr(2)B(2) forms in CaRh(2)B(2)-type orthorhombic crystal structure (space group Fddd). At low fields the dc magnetic susceptibility of PrIr(2)B(2) exhibits a sharp anomaly near 46 K which is followed by an abrupt increase below 10 K with a peak at 6 K, and split-up in ZFC and FC data below 46 K. In contrast, the specific heat exhibits only a broad Schottky type hump near 9 K which indicates that there is no long range magnetic order in this compound. The thermo-remanent magnetization is found to decay very slowly with a mean relaxation time τ = 3917 s. An ac magnetic susceptibility measurement also observes two sharp anomalies; the peak positions strongly depend on the frequency and shift towards high temperature with an increase in frequency, obeying the Vogel-Fulcher law as expected for a canonical spin-glass system. The two spin-glass transitions occur at freezing temperatures T(f1) = 36 K and T(f2) = 3.5 K with shifts in the freezing temperatures per decade of frequency δT(f1) = 0.044 and δT(f2) = 0.09. An analysis of the frequency dependence of the transition temperature with critical slowing down, τ(max)/τ(0) = (T(f)-T(SG))/T(SG)](-zν), gives τ(0) = 10(-7) s and exponent zν = 8, and the Vogel-Fulcher law gives an activation energy of 84 K for T(f1) and 27.5 K for T(f2). While zν = 8 is typical for spin-glass system, the characteristic relaxation time τ(0) = 10(-7) s is very large and comparable to that of superspin-glass systems. An addition of C in PrIr(2)B(2) leads to PrIr(2)B(2)C which forms in LuNi(2)B(2)C-type tetragonal structure (space group I4/mmm) and remains paramagnetic down to 2 K. The specific heat data show a broad Schottky type anomaly, which could be fairly reproduced with CEF analysis which suggests that the ground state is a CEF-split singlet and the first excited state singlet is situated 15 K above the ground state. The Sommerfeld coefficient γ~300 mJ mol(-1) K(-2) of PrIr(2)B(2)C is very high and reflects a heavy fermion behaviour in this compound. We believe that the heavy fermion state in PrIr(2)B(2)C has its origin in low lying crystal field excitations as has been observed in PrRh(2)B(2)C. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 PubMed 等数据库收录! |
|