Abstract
Magnetic and structural properties of high quality magnetocaloric MnFe4Si3 single crystals are investigated macroscopically and on an atomic scale. Refinements of combined neutron and X-ray single crystal diffraction data introduce a new structural model in space group P6 characterized by partial ordering of Mn and Fe into layers perpendicular to c on one of the transition metal sites. A second transition metal site is exclusively occupied by iron. MnFe4Si3 has a phase transition to a ferromagnetically ordered phase at approximately 300 K and displays a strong anisotropy of the magnetization and the magnetocaloric effect with the easy axis of magnetization in the a,b-plane. This is confirmed by a refinement of the magnetic structure in the magnetic spacegroup Pm′, which shows that the spins on the sites with mixed occupancy of Mn and Fe are aligned in the a,b-plane. A significant magnetic moment for the site exclusively occupied by iron could not be refined. The thermal evolution of the lattice parameters...
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