Anomalous thermal expansion and magnetostriction in HoAl2

✍ Scribed by M.R. Ibarra; O. Moze; E.W. Lee; J.S. Abell

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1988
• Weight: 184 KB
• Volume: 149
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0378-4363
• DOI: 10.1016/0378-4363(88)90259-8

✦ Synopsis

Thermal expansion and magnetisation measurements have been performed on a single crystal of HoA12 between 4 and 300 K. A sharp spontaneous volume anomaly has been observed at the spin re-orientation temperature where the easy direction of magnetisation changes from [101] to [010]. A model incorporating single-ion crystal field, exchange and magnetoelastic contributions has been found which adequately explains the temperature dependence of the anomalous volume distortion. From a fit to the experimental data, the magnetoelastic coupling constants M 4 and M 6 have been determined.