Temperature anomalies of the hyperfine magnetic fields on 111Cd probe nuclei in ferro- and antiferromagnetic phases of the ordered FeRh alloys

Abstract

FeRh ordered alloy crystallizes in the bcc B2 structure [1], presents first order phase transition from antiferromagnetic (AF) ordering at low temperature to ferromagnetic (F) state above 350 K [2], and shows significant magnetocaloric effect near RT [3]. Recently, FeRh alloy has also been considered as an interesting material for spintronics applications [4]. In the AF state, FeRh has compensated AFII-type magnetic structure with μFe=3.3 μB and μRh=0. In the F state of FeRh both Fe and Rh atoms have magnetic moments of μFe=3.2 μB and μRh=0.9 μB, respectively [5]. The Fe – Rh compounds were studied by Mössbauer spectroscopy (MS) on 57Fe [6, 7] and 119Sn probe nuclei [8]. In this work, we have, for the first time, investigated the HFs for 111Cd probe atoms in two FeRh samples of different composition by perturbed γ-γ angular correlation (PAC) spectroscopy in the range from 40 K to a temperature above the TC. The alloy Fe0.48Rh0.52 (A1 sample) is AF at low temperatures. At the temperature Tt = 345 K the first order phase transition is observed, and this compound becomes F at the temperatures lower than TC = 685 K. The alloy Fe0.52Rh0.48 (A2 sample) is only ferromagnetic below TC = 800 K. It was established that in both alloys 111Cd probes substitute only Fe ions. The HFs values extrapolated to 0 K were found to be B1(0) =8.70(5) T and B2(0) =5.53(5) T for AF and F ordering of A1 and A2 samples, respectively. The HF in the AF state is almost 60% higher than the HF in the F alloy. The dependences B1 (T) and B2 (T) show anomalous behavior. At Tt = 345 K, phase transition AF-F is accompanied by a sharp decrease in the HF at 111Cd probe nuclei. Earlier, an increase of the corresponding HFs was observed for 57Fe atoms and 119Sn impurity atoms in the region of AF-F transition by MS in [6] and [8]. Analysis of B1(T) and B2(T) has allowed to obtain the temperature dependences of the competing contributions BFe (T) and BRh (T) to the HFs on 111Cd probe nuclei in FeRh alloys.