Influence of chemical doping and hydrostatic pressure on the magnetic properties of Mn 1 − x Fe x As magnetocaloric compounds

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an investigation of the magnetic and structural properties of Mn1−xFexAs compounds under hydrostatic pressure and chemical doping. The chemical doping was performed by using low Fe doping levels (x = 0, 0.003, 0.006, 0.010, 0.015, and 0.018), which emulates the negative pressure effect on the crystal structure. The results of this approach were compared with the physical pressure effect (hydrostatic pressure from 0 to 2.2 kbar) on the Mn0.997Fe0.003As. Both approaches exhibit the same magnetic behaviors: the TC and saturation magnetization decrease as the pressure increases; for the highest pressure studied, an orthorhombic antiferromagnetic phase occurs below the critical temperature and coexists with the ferromagnetic hexagonal phase. The equivalence between hydrostatic pressure and chemical doping indicates that the Fe doping only causes structural deformation. In addition, we performed magnetic measurements at high temperature (up to 520 K) on the samples with x = 0 and 0.003 in order to investigate the magnetic behavior above TC = 310 K. These results, along with structural characterization, clearly show that between TC and Tt the system is a weak antiferromagnet with short-range order confined only in the ab plane. Finally, using the low- and high-temperature data, the magnetic phase diagrams of the compound under hydrostatic pressure and chemical doping were redrawn.