Magnetic properties of the antiferromagnetic compound TmIn3

Abstract

We present measurements of the ac susceptibility between 80 mK and 250 K, the specific heat from 96 mK to 30 K, the resistivity from 4.2 K to room temperature and the magnetization in very high pulsed fields for the cubic intermetallic compound TmIn3. From the analysis of the susceptibility experiments in zero and non-zero magnetic field it is concluded that TmIn3 orders antiferromagnetically at a temperature of 1.6 K. The specific heat of the isomorphous compound LuIn3 is determined in the temperature region 1.3-30 K, enabling an analysis of the specific heat of TmIn3 in terms of a crystal field Hamiltonian. Possible sets of crystal field parameters have been obtained. Elastic neutron scattering has been used for qualitative analysis of the crystal structure at 1.7 and at 300 K. This structure appears to be the same at the two temperatures, although we cannot exclude the possibility of a small distortion from cubic symmetry. © 1989.