Eur. Phys. J. B (2017) 90: 243
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2017-80229-x

Effect of manganese doping on the electronic structure and optical properties of Ce₂Fe_17-xMn_x (x = 0, 1, 2)

¹ Institute of Metal Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences – Ural Branch, 620990 Yekaterinburg, Russia
² Ural Federal University, 620002 Yekaterinburg, Russia

^a e-mail: lukoyanov@imp.uran.ru

Received: 20 April 2017
Received in final form: 27 September 2017
Published online: 11 December 2017

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the electronic structure and optical properties of the Ce₂Fe_17-xMn_x (x = 0, 1, 2) intermetallic compounds and their change with the Mn-concentration growth within theoretical ab initio calculations. From these results we plot and compare experimental and theoretical optical conductivity utilizing interband transitions to interpret the experimental curve. To estimate the influence of manganese substitutions on the 3d sublattice, exchange Fe/Mn interaction parameters were computed and analysed. It was found that for the Mn substitutional impurity in the dumbbell positions the dominating ferromagnetic exchange interaction becomes the antiferromagnetic one favoring noncollinear magnetic ordering which was found in Ce₂Fe_17-xMn_x at low temperatures.