Neutron diffraction investigations of zero-field and field-induced magnetic structures of DyNiSn single crystal

Abstract

Single crystal neutron diffraction studies have been performed on the rare-earth ternary compound, DyNiSn. This crystal exhibits an incommensurate magnetic structure expressed by the propagation vector, Q = (0.662 0.352 0) with its third harmonics at low temperatures. In an external magnetic field applied along the c-axis DyNiSn shows incommensurate modulation with Q = (1 0.315 0) at 1.6 K, while along the easy magnetization direction of the b-axis a commensurate modulation with Q = (2/3 0 0) develops at 2 K. The results along the b-axis are fully consistent with the magnetization curve.