XMCD study of the magnetic behavior of R(Al 1−xFe x) 2 compounds

Abstract

We present an XMCD study performed at the Fe–K-edge through the Ho(Al 1− x Fe x ) 2 Laves phases. In agreement with other series, a rare-earth contribution, XMCD R, is found. We have also observed that in these compounds XMCD R is clearly larger than that obtained in series with a lower R:Fe ratio, indicating a relation between the size of XMCD R and the number of R neighboring atoms. In addition, the rare-earth sublattice also affects the peak at lower energy, contrary to results obtained on other R –T series, where this lower-energy peak was typically considered as purely of Fe origin. The influence of the R sublattice even at ∼0 eV prevents from using Fe–K-edge XMCD as a fingerprint to study the magnetic character of Fe.