Magnetic and structural phase transitions in erbium at low temperatures and high pressures

Abstract

Electrical resistance and crystal structure measurements have been carried out on polycrystalline erbium (Er) at temperatures down to 10 K and pressures up to 20 GPa. An abrupt change in the slope of the resistance is observed with decreasing temperature below 84 K, which is associated with the $c$-axis modulated (CAM) antiferromagnetic (AFM) ordering of the Er moments. With increasing pressure the temperature of the resistance slope change and the corresponding AFM ordering temperature decrease until vanishing above 10.6 GPa. The disappearance of the slope change in the resistance occurs at similar pressures where the hcp structural phase of Er is transformed to a nine-layer \ensuremath{\alpha}-Sm structural phase, as confirmed by our high-pressure synchrotron x-ray diffraction studies. These results suggest that the disappearance in the AFM ordering of Er moments is strongly correlated to the structural phase transition at high pressures and low temperatures.