Specific heat of spin-glass Au—1 at.% Fe below 30 K

Abstract

The spin-glass contribution to the specific heat shows positive curvature at the lowest temperatures, leading to a region linearly dependent on temperature which extrapolates back to a positive temperature intercept. A plot of (spin-glass specific heat divided by temperature) versus temperature shows a "knee" at the spin-glass freezing temperature. These two findings are similar to recent results on the spin-glass CuMn but contrary to previous conclusions on the AuFe system. At the highest temperatures the specific heat of the alloy is less than that of pure gold.