Investigation of magnetic property of GdFeO3 single crystal grown in air by optical floating zone technique

Abstract

Single phase Gadolinium orthoferrite (GdFeO3) with orthorhombic perovskite structure was synthesized without any garnet impurities by solid state reaction and subsequently GdFeO3 single crystals were grown by the optical floating zone technique. The temperature dependent magnetization measurement revealed the magnetic phase transition from anti-ferromagnetic ordering to paramagnetic ordering at 670K. The overlapping of the magnetization measured under zero-field and field cooling condition in the range of 300–20K signifies that there is no magnetic transition in this temperature range. The hysteresis loop measurements revealed that in comparison to the values reported for the crystal grown in oxygen, the air grown sample exhibits one order lower coercive field (∼75Oe). The Bloch 3/2-law was found to hold good for GdFeO3 with the value of B-parameter as 2.69×10−5K−3/2. The coercivity exhibited sharp dip at 200 and 550K. At and above 550K the ability of the antiferromagnetic ordering to pin the direction of magnetization related to the weak ferromagnetism present in the material vanishes leading to the lowering in the coercivity.