Effect of Ge substitution for Si on the magnetic hyperfine field in LaMn2Si2 compound measured by perturbed angular correlation spectroscopy with 140Ce as probe nuclei

Abstract

The effect of substitution of Ge for Si in LaMn2Si2 compound on the magnetic hyperfine field (Bhf) has been investigated by perturbed γ−γ angular correlation (PAC) spectroscopy using 140La(140Ce) as probe nuclei. This compound exhibits antiferromagnetism followed by a ferromagnetic ordering when temperature decreases. The behavior of the ferromagnetic transition when Ge gradually replaces Si, with concentrations of 20%, 40%, 80%, and 100% is discussed. PAC measurements were carried out in the temperature range from 15 K to 325 K. Results for LaMn2Si2 compound showed that the dependence of Bhf with temperature follows the expected behavior for the host magnetization and could be fitted by a Brillouin function for JMn = 5/2. However, the temperature dependence of Bhf for compounds when Si is gradually replaced by Ge showed a deviation from such a behavior, which gradually increases up to a strong deviation observed for LaMn2Ge2. This striking behavior was ascribed to the hybridization of d band of the host and f band of the Ce impurities, which is stronger when the unit cell volume increase as Si ions are substituted by Ge atoms.