Magnetic Structure of Rare-Earth Nickel Boride-Carbides

TL;DR

This paper develops a semiclassical theoretical model for the magnetic structures of rare-earth nickel boride-carbides, successfully explaining experimental observations and providing phase diagrams for different magnetic field orientations.

Contribution

It introduces a four-positional clock model to analyze magnetic phases in RENi₂B₂C compounds, a novel approach for this class of materials.

Findings

The model accurately reproduces experimental phase diagrams.

It explains the magnetic behavior under varying field directions.

The theory aligns with recent experimental data.

Abstract

We present a theory of the magnetic rare-earth nickel boride-carbides (RENi$_2$B$_2$C, RE=Ho, Er, Tm). Large total angular momentum allows one to employ semiclassical approximation and reduce the problem to the four-positional clock model. The latter gives a proper phase diagram in magnetic field-magnetic moment plane for varying directions of in-plane magnetic field. The theory explains recent experimental observations. PACS: 74.72.Ny, 75.30.Cr, 75.30.Kz, 75.10.Dg