Magnetic and Transport Properties of Rare Earth Based Intermetallic Compounds

There is a renewed interest in the rare-earth based intermetallic compounds, which is primarily due to their possible use in the field of magnetic cooling and giant magnetoresistance based memory devices. A correlation between the magnetic and electrical response of a material is an essential requirement for magnetic sensors such as read head devices in computer hard disks. The compounds containing heavy rare-earth atoms with large localized moment are particularly useful for various magneto-functional applications. The magnetic behaviours observed in case of rare-earth based intermetallics are vast and fascinating, which include complex magnetic structures, metamagnetism, magneto-structural instability, heavy fermion behaviour and so on. A wide variety of magnetic structures are displayed by the rare earth metals and their alloys, starting from simple ferromagnetism to complex sinusoidal or helical ordering. Their magnetic properties stem from unpaired electrons in the 4f shell, and they are governed by the crystal field effect and the Ruderman Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) type indirect exchange interaction.

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SKYPE Seminar