Spin-glass transition in amorphous Tb-Si films.

Abstract

A recent study established that disordered Tb exhibits a spin-glass transition with a spin-glass freezing temperature ranging from 183 to 53 K, the lowest temperature corresponding to the greatest degree of atomic disorder. This result is confirmed by the present study of amorphous Tb-Si alloys which demonstrates that at low Si content the spin-glass properties of ${\mathrm{Tb}}_{90}$${\mathrm{Si}}_{10}$ are essentially identical to those of the most distorted (quasiamorphous) pure Tb film. Furthermore, the spin-glass properties of Tb-Si alloys with Si content up to 50 at.?were studied by ac and low-field dc susceptibility measurements with special emphasis on the composition ${\mathrm{Tb}}_{5}$${\mathrm{Si}}_{3}$ which is ferromagnetic in the crystalline state.