Low temperature heat capacity and magnetic study of the Al80Mn20 icosahedral alloy

Abstract

Abstract Low temperature heat capacity and magnetization measurements are reported for the Al 80 Mn 20 alloy in the quasicrystalline icosahedral phase. The heat capacity, which was measured for temperatures ranging from 0.5 to 5.0 K and magnetic fields up to 11.7 kOe, shows a broad magnetic contribution around 1.0 K. The linear electronic contribution does not indicate an anomalously high density-of-states at the Fermi energy as predicted theoretically for quasicrystalline systems. The d.c. magnetization, which was measured from 2.0 to 300 K and with magnetic fields up to 50 kOe, indicates an effective number of one 11 μ B localized magnetic moment for approximately every 100 Mn atoms. The low field susceptibility follows the Curie-Weiss law for temperatures ≧ 10 K, while a spin-glass-like ordering is observed at low temperatures.