Effects of pressure on magnetic properties of gadolinium

Abstract

Abstract Experimental and theoretical studies of pressure effects on magnetic properties and electronic structure of gadolinium metal were carried out to shed more light on the nature of magnetic ordering and interactions between the localized 4f moments. The dc paramagnetic susceptibility of Gd was measured in the temperature range 295–365 K and under hydrostatic pressure up to 0.16 GPa, yielding values of the paramagnetic Curie temperature Θ and its pressure derivative. Based on the results of ab initio electronic structure calculations, the experimental behavior of Θ under hydrostatic pressure together with the literature data on the uniform and uniaxial pressure effects was examined within a mean-field like approach. For this purpose, the effective d-band susceptibility and the relevant exchange integrals were calculated as functions of the lattice parameters within the density functional theory. These calculations provided a reasonable description of the experimentally observed uniform pressure effect, but a less satisfactory description of the uniaxial pressure effect.