Neutron diffraction and magnetocaloric effect studies of MnFe 1-x Co x P series of solid solutions

Abstract

International audienceMnFe 1-x Co x P intermetallic series of solid solutions (0.4<x<0.6) have been studied by means of powder neutron diffraction in 10−320 K temperature range. Rietveld analysis pointed out that Co 2 P-type orthorhombic crystal structure (SG: Pnma) presents for all series. Helicoidal incommensurate antiferromagnetic structure with propagation vector q = [0, 0, q] were evidenced for all compounds at low temperature range. The q value decreases with cobalt content and the second order polynomial q(x) it was evidenced, that is found well correlated with this dependence. Magnetic moments values of µ Mn =3.34 µ B and µ (Fe,Co) =0.06 µ B were determined from neutron diffraction refinements for x=0.4 at 10 K. In addition, magnetic interactions in relations with electronic band structure calculations of MnFe 1-x Co x P were presented and discussed reference to previous published data. Finally, magnetocaloric properties for selected compounds of the MnFe 1-x Co x P and MnFe 0.45 Co 0.45 P 0.9 Ge 0.1 series of compounds are presented