Mn-site doping and its effect on inverted hysteresis and thermomagnetic irreversibility behavior of antiferromagnetic Mn5Si3alloy

S C Das; K Mondal; N Khamaru; S Pramanick; S Chatterjee

doi:10.1088/1361-648X/aba983

Mn-site doping and its effect on inverted hysteresis and thermomagnetic irreversibility behavior of antiferromagnetic Mn₅Si₃alloy

J Phys Condens Matter. 2020 Sep 3;32(48). doi: 10.1088/1361-648X/aba983.

Authors

S C Das¹, K Mondal¹, N Khamaru¹, S Pramanick¹, S Chatterjee¹

Affiliation

¹ UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research, Kolkata Centre, Sector III, LB-8, Salt Lake, Kolkata 700 106, India.

PMID: 32877377
DOI: 10.1088/1361-648X/aba983

Abstract

The structural and magnetic behavior of Mn-site doped intermetallic manganese silicide alloys of nominal compositions Mn_5-xA_xSi₃(x= 0.05, 0.1, 0.2 and A = Ni, Cr) have been investigated with a focus to the inverted hysteresis behavior and thermomagnetic irreversibility. Room temperature x-ray powder diffraction data confirm that all the doped alloys crystallize in hexagonalD8₈type structure with space groupP6₃/mcm. The doped alloys are found to show paramagnetic-collinear antiferromagnetic (AFM2)-noncollinear antiferromagnetic (AFM1) transitions during cooling from room temperature. A significant decrease in the critical values of both AFM1-AFM2 transition temperatures and fields have been observed with the increasing Ni/Cr concentration. Inverted hysteresis loop, field-induced arrest, and thermomagnetic arrest, the key features of the undoped Mn₅Si₃alloy, are found to be significantly affected by the Mn-site doping and eventually vanishes with 4% doping.

Keywords: alloys; inverted hysteresis loop; thermomagnetic irreversibility.