Rare-earth (RE) nanolaminates Mo4RE4Al7C3 featuring ferromagnetism and mixed-valence states
(2018) Physical Review Materials — Vol. 2, n° 11, p. 114401 (2018)
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- (en) Rare-earth-based (RE) nanolaminates have attracted attention recently because of their complicated magnetism and their potential as precursors for strongly correlated two-dimensional materials. In this work, we synthesized a class of nanolaminates with a Mo4RE4Al7C3 chemistry, where RE = Ce or Pr. Powder samples of both phases were characterized with respect to structure and composition. Single crystals of Mo4Ce4Al7C3 were used for magnetization measurements. The crystal structure was investigated by means of x-ray diffraction and scanning transmission electron microscopy. Magnetization analysis reveals a ferromagnetic ground state with a Curie temperature of ∼10.5 K. X-ray absorption near-edge structure provides experimental evidence that Ce is in a mixed-valence state. X-ray magnetic circular dichroism shows that only the Ce atoms with 4f 1 configuration occupying one of the two possible sites are ferromagnetically coupled, with a saturation moment of ∼1.2μB per atom. We thus classify Mo4Ce4Al7C3 as a ferromagnetic, mixed-valence compound.
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Tao, Q., Ouisse, T., Pinek, D., Chaix-Pluchery, O., Wilhelm, F., Rogalev, A., Opagiste, C., Jouffret, L., Champagne, A., Charlier, J.-C., Lu, J., Hultman, L., Barsoum, M. W., & Rosen, J. (2018). Rare-earth (RE) nanolaminates Mo4RE4Al7C3 featuring ferromagnetism and mixed-valence states. Physical Review Materials, 2(11), 114401. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevmaterials.2.114401 (Original work published 2018)