Eur. Phys. J. B 36, 511-518 (2003)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2004-00006-4

Magnetic order in RCr₂Si₂ intermetallics

¹ INFM, Unità di Modena, Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Via G. Campi 213/a, 41100 Modena, Italy
² FRM-II, Technische Universität München, 85747, Garching, Germany
³ School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
⁴ Van der Waals-Zeeman Institute, University of Amsterdam, Valckenierstraat 65, 1018 XE, The Netherlands
⁵ The Centre for the Physics of Materials and the Physics Department, McGill University, 3600 University St., Montreal (Quebec), H3A 2T8, Canada

Corresponding author: ^a moze.oscar@unimore.it

Received: 4 November 2003
Published online: 30 January 2004

Abstract

The magnetic structure and ordering temperatures of three intermetallic compounds which crystallize in the tetragonal ThCr₂Si₂ structure, TbCr₂Si₂, HoCr₂Si₂ and ErCr₂Si₂, have been determined by neutron diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry and magnetization measurements. The Cr-sublattice orders anti-ferromagnetically with éel temperatures of 758 K for TbCr₂Si₂, 718 K for HoCr₂Si₂ and 692 K for ErCr₂Si₂. Chromium atoms located at 4d crystallographic sites are aligned anti-parallel along the c-axis, with GCr magnetic modes. In contrast with metallic bcc Cr, the refined room temperature value of the ordered Cr moment is anomalously large for all three compounds. No long range magnetic order of the R sublattice in TbCr₂Si₂ and HoCr₂Si₂ is observed, whilst the Er sublattice in ErCr₂Si₂ orders independently of the Cr sublattice below 2.4 K with moments ferromagnetically aligned in the basal plane.