Magnetism of perovskite cobaltites with Kramers rare-earth ions

Abstract

The band-gap insulators RECoO3 (RE = Nd3+, Sm3+, and Dy3+) with Co3+ ions stabilized in the non-magnetic low-spin state have been investigated by specific heat measurements. The experiments evidence an antiferromagnetic ordering of the rare earths with Néel temperature of TN = 1.25, 1.50, and 3.60 K for NdCoO3, SmCoO3, and DyCoO3, respectively. With increasing external field, the lambda peak in specific heat, indicative of the transition, shifts to lower temperatures and vanishes for field of about 3 T. Starting from this point, a broader Schottky peak is formed, centered in 1 K range, and its position is moved to higher temperatures proportionally to applied field. The origin of the peak is in Zeeman splitting of the ground Kramers doublet, and the gradual shift with field defines effective g-factors for the rare-earth pseudospins in studied compounds. The results obtained are confronted with the calculations of crystal field splitting of the rare-earth multiplets.