Propriedades magneticas de filmes de ligas GD-Cr / Magnetic properties of Gd-Cr alloy films

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2008

RESUMO

Vapor condensation techniques are very useful for preparation of alloys whose components have no mutual solubility under equilibrium conditions In this work, one of these techniques ? sputtering ? has been used to fabricate metastable GdXCr1-X alloys whose magnetic properties were investigated as a function of the Gd concentration, x. Grazing incidence angle X-ray diffraction (GAXRD) and Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy were employed to characterize the film structure and elemental composition, respectively. The GAXRD measurements revealed, for the Gd fraction, a hcp structure for x ³ 0,88; for 0,16 £ x £ 0,76 the Gd fraction was amorphous. The existence of a bcc structure for x <0,16 was observed in the diffractograms for the Cr phase, which was amorphous for x ³ 0,16. To investigate the magnetic properties, a SQUID magnetometer and a PPMS were used. The former was employed for magnetic moment measurements as a function of applied static field and temperature. The PPMS was used for ac-susceptibility determinations as a function of the frequency of the ac driving field, temperature, and applied static field. The complex magnetic nature of the Gd-Cr films was revealed from the MxH isotherms which did not show saturation even at the lowest temperatures, and did not exhibit a linear behavior at higher temperatures. Processing of the magnetic data has shown that the films exhibit a ferromagnetic behavior for x ³ 0,5 and paramagnetic one for all other Gd concentrations. The Curie temperature (TC) increased monotonically from 170 to 290 K as x increased from 0,5 to 1,0. A monotonical increase in the Curie-Weiss temperature ( q C ) with x was also observed for all films. From the extrapolated MxH isotherm at 2 K (saturation magnetization), the saturation moments were calculated and found to be nearly constant at about 7.3 µB. Both static and dynamic susceptibility measurements revealed the existence of a magnetic glassy behavior in all alloys, occurring below a freezing temperature Tf . For the higher concentration alloys, the ferromagnetic and the cluster glass state were observed at low temperatures. It was thus concluded that the exchange interactions within Gd atoms in the clusters were not of the RKKY but of the superexchange type. The magnetocaloric effect (MCE) was investigated from the magnetic entropy change ( DSM) as a function of temperature, for the removal of a 50 kOe field. Samples with x <0,2 exhibited DSMxT curves whose shapes are typical of a superferromagnet, consistently with the existence of Gd clusters in the films. For all the other alloys whose MCE was investigated, the presence of clusters is manifested from the behavior of these curves at low temperatures; at higher temperatures, the evolution of DSM with T strongly indicated the presence of more than one magnetic phase in the alloys A magnetic phase diagram based on the Tf and Tc transition temperatures and their dependence on x is presented in this thesis

ASSUNTO(S)

thin films efeito magnetocalorico nanocomposites ligas metaestaveis ac-susceptibility metastable alloys vidros de spin - materiais terras raras magnetocaloric effect filmes finos - propriedades magneticas rare earths susceptibilidade-ac nanocompositos spin glasses

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