Thermal behavior in the magnetic phase diagram of the easy axis antiferromagnet Cs2FeCl5·H2O

Abstract

The specific heat at a constant applied field CH(T) and at fixed temperatures CT(H) of single crystals of the low anisotropy antiferromagnet Cs2FeCl5·H2O was measured across the different boundaries of its magnetic phase diagram, in magnetic fields up to 9 T applied parallel and perpendicular to the easy axis direction and to temperatures down to 0.3 K. The specific heat data indicate that the critical behavior along the antiferromagnetic to paramagnetic phase boundary and the spin-flop to paramagnetic phase boundary, are basically the same. We also measured the specific heat when the first order antiferromagnetic to spin-flop phase boundary is crossed at a fixed temperature. The entropy of the different magnetic phases is discussed.