Single crystal growth and characterization of GdRh2Si2

Abstract

High-temperature indium flux growth was applied to prepare single crystals of GdRh2Si2 by a modified Bridgman method leading to mm-sized single crystals with a platelet habitus. Specific heat and susceptibility data of GdRh2Si2 exhibit a pronounced anomaly at TN=107K, where the antiferromagnetic ordering sets in. Magnetic measurements on the single crystals were performed down to T=2K in external fields from B=0 to 9T applied along the [100]-, [110]- and [001]-direction of the tetragonal lattice. The effective magnetic moment determined from a Curie–Weiss fit agrees well with experimental values from literature, but is larger than the theoretically predicted value. Electrical transport data recorded for current flow parallel and perpendicular to the [001]-direction show a large anisotropy below TN. The residual resistivity ratio RRR=ρ300K/ρ0~23 demonstrates that we succeeded in preparing high-quality crystals using high-temperature indium flux-growth.