Magnetization jumps and relaxation effect in doped CeFe2

For the first time, we find that the dynamic antiferromagnetic phase present in CeFe2 gets stabilized with Ga and Si substitutions. We find that phenomena such as strain-induced first order jumps in the magnetization curves, asymmetry between the M-H curves during the increasing and decreasing field cycles, the envelope curve being inside the virgin curve, occur in these compounds. Temperature and time dependences of magnetization show that the compounds possess glassy behavior at low temperatures. Multi-step magnetization behavior, unusual relaxation effect, thermal and magnetic history dependence, which are signatures of the martensitic scenario due to the strong magneto-structural coupling, are found to be present in this system. We also show that one can induce the magnetization steps with the help of appropriate measurement protocol. Detailed magnetization relaxation studies have been carried out to understand the dynamics of magnetic phase transition.

Arabinda Haldar, K. G. Suresh, A. K. Nigam · 2010