Magnetic properties of the Ag-In-rare-earth 1/1 approximants

TL;DR

This study investigates the magnetic behavior of Ag-In-RE approximants, revealing localized moments, spin-glass-like freezing in Tb, and short-range antiferromagnetic correlations, with similarities to quasicrystals.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the magnetic properties of Ag-In-RE approximants, highlighting the role of local clusters and comparing them to quasicrystal behavior.

Findings

Localized isotropic moments for most RE ions

Spin-glass-like freezing observed in Tb at 3.7 K

Short-range antiferromagnetic correlations similar to quasicrystals

Abstract

We have performed magnetic susceptibility and neutron scattering measurements on polycrystalline Ag-In-RE (RE: rare-earth) 1/1 approximants. In the magnetic susceptibility measurements, for most of the RE elements, inverse susceptibility shows linear behaviour in a wide temperature range, confirming well localized isotropic moments for the RE$^{3+}$ ions. Exceptionally for the light RE elements, such as Ce and Pr, non-linear behaviour was observed, possibly due to significant crystalline field splitting or valence fluctuation. For RE = Tb, the susceptibility measurement clearly shows a bifurcation of the field-cooled and zero-field-cooled susceptibility at $T_{\rm f} = 3.7$~K, suggesting a spin-glass-like freezing. On the other hand, neutron scattering measurements detect significant development of short-range antiferromagnetic spin correlations in elastic channel, which accompanied by a broad peak at $\hbar\omega = 4$~meV in inelastic scattering spectrum. These features have striking similarity to those in the Zn-Mg-Tb quasicrystals, suggesting that the short-range spin freezing behaviour is due to local high symmetry clusters commonly seen in both the systems.