Electrical transport, heat capacity, and high-field magnetization study in intermetallic Ni₂CeSn compound

You are not logged in to this journal. Log in

Magnetization, heat capacity, and electrical resistivity measurements were performed on a Ni₂CeSn compound (orthorhombic structure) in the temperature range of 2–300  K. This compound is paramagnetic down to 6  K. At higher temperatures above T=150  K, the magnetic susceptibility obeys Curie–Weiss behavior yielding an effective magnetic moment µ_eff=2.56µ_B/f.u., which is very close to that of the free Ce³⁺ ion (2.54µ_B) with a high negative Curie–Weiss temperature, _CW=−170  K. As the temperature is decreased, the magnetic moment decreases gradually to 0.43µ_B/f.u. at 4.2  K. We also infer that, based on the high field (up to 23  T) magnetization and the magnetic susceptibility data, a crystal-field splitting of cerium atoms becomes significant at temperatures below 150  K. We used heat capacity and resistivity measurements to determine the crystal-field splitting of the Ce³⁺ magnetic sublevels. It is found that the ground magnetic state for the Ce³⁺ is a doublet of J_z=±1/2 states, with a first excited quartet of J_z=±3/2 and J_z=±5/2 states separated by ~107  K. The resistivity exhibits a shallow minimum at about 11  K, which may be due to the development of partial magnetic order based on these crystal-field-split states. ©2008 American Institute of Physics