Eur. Phys. J. B 14, 29-42 (2000)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s100510050103

Anisotropic magnetic exchange in orthorhombic RCu₂ compounds (R = rare earth)

¹ Institut für Experimentalphysik, Technische Universität Wien, Wiedner Hauptstraße 810, 1040 Wien, Austria
² Institut für Angewandte Physik, Technische Universität Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany
³ Institut Laue Langevin, BP 156 38042 Grenoble Cedex 9, France
⁴ Institut für Festkörperforschung, Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52425 Jülich, Germany
⁵ TU München, Zentrale Betriebseinheit FRM - II, 85747 Garching, Germany
⁶ Hahn Meitner Institut, 14109 Berlin, Germany

Received: 21 April 1999
Published online: 15 March 2000

Abstract

The magnetic excitations in the field induced ferromagnetic phase F3 of a NdCu₂ single crystal were investigated by means of inelastic neutron scattering experiments. A mean field model using the random phase approximation in connection with anisotropic magnetic bilinear R-R (R denotes a rare earth) exchange interactions is proposed to account for the observed dispersion. The relevance of this model to the analysis of the magnetic ordering process in other RCu₂ compounds is discussed.