Exchange bias up to room temperature in antiferromagnetic hexagonal Mn3Ge

By Jin-Feng Qian, A. Nayak, Guido Kreiner, W. Schnelle, C. Felser. 2013

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Mn3.04Ge0.96 has a hexagonal crystal structure, which can be stabilized by high-temperature annealing, and shows antiferromagnetic order with a small ferromagnetic component of less than 0.1μB and a coercivity of 0.45 T. In the ordered phase, magnetization curves M(H) exhibit an exchange bias of 62 mT at T = 2 K after field cooling, which is observable up to room temperature. The exchange anisotropy is suggested to originate from the exchange interaction between the host of triangular-antiferromagnetic Mn3Ge units and embedded ferrimagnetic-like clusters. Such clusters develop when excess Mn atoms occupy empty Ge sites in the original triangular-antiferromagnetic structure of Mn3Ge.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ba32130ff84ff2b8a244a448c835f8aa3774295d