Field-induced canting of magnetic moments in GdCo5 at finite temperature: first-principles calculations and high-field measurements

TL;DR

This study combines first-principles calculations and high-field measurements to analyze the temperature-dependent magnetic behavior of GdCo5, revealing a field-induced transition from antiferromagnetic to canted magnetic moments.

Contribution

It provides a combined theoretical and experimental analysis of the field-induced magnetic transition in GdCo5, highlighting the temperature dependence and correcting theoretical inaccuracies.

Findings

Transition occurs around 44-48 T at 1.4 K

Critical field increases with temperature in calculations

Experimental transition shows weak temperature dependence

Abstract

We present calculations and experimental measurements of the temperature-dependent magnetization of a single crystal of GdCo$_5$ in magnetic fields of order 60 T. At zero temperature the calculations, based on density-functional theory in the disordered-local-moment picture, predict a field-induced transition from an antiferromagnetic to a canted alignment of Gd and Co moments at 46.1 T. At higher temperatures the calculations find this critical field to increase along with the zero-field magnetization. The experimental measurements observe this transition to occur between 44-48 T at 1.4 K. Up to temperatures of at least 100 K, the experiments continue to observe the transition; however, at variance with the calculations, no strong temperature dependence of the critical field is apparent. We assign this difference to the inaccurate description of the zero-field magnetization of the calculations at low temperatures, due to the use of classical statistical mechanics. Correcting for this effect, we recover a consistent description of the high-field magnetization of GdCo$_5$ from theory and experiment.