Magnetic Characteristics of Lanthanide—Silver Compounds Having the CsCl Structure

Abstract

The magnetic characteristics of 11 intermetallic compounds represented by the formula LnAg are reported for temperatures between 2° and 300°K. YAg is a Pauli paramagnet. CeAg and PrAg are ferromagnets with Curie temperatures 9° and 14°K, respectively. The compounds with Ln=Nd, Sm, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, or Tm exhibit pronounced susceptibility peaks, from which it is inferred that they are antiferromagnetic at low temperatures. This may also be true for GdAg whose susceptibility behavior is anomalous below 200°K. At the upper temperatures studied Curie—Weiss behavior is observed, and effective moments in good agreement with the free tripositive ion moments are obtained for all except YAg, SmAg, GdAg, and ErAg. The lack of compliance for SmAg is ascribed to limitations in the experimental procedure used. GdAg obeys the Curie—Weiss Law above 200°K, but with an effective moment of 8.57 μB. The effective moment observed for ErAg varies from about 9 μB at 298° to 6 μB at 77°K.