The recently published article titled “Alloying-driven transition between ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism in UTGe compounds: UCo1−xIrxGe” is an outcome of Dávid Hovančík’s diploma thesis work. The research on the diploma thesis was carried out within the European Erasmus+ student project and as a cooperation between Charles University (MGML laboratories) and University of Presov (UnipoLab) whose student was Dávid Hovančík at the time of his thesis work. It was successfully defended in 2021 and evaluated as excellent work and awarded with the Rector’s Award of University of Presov. After the defense, David became a member of the Department of Condensed Matter Physics (DCMP) of Charles University from autumn 2021 in the Ph.D. program of Condensed Matter Physics.
Dávid's thesis was successfully defended and awarded with the Rector's Award of University of Presov.
The above-mentioned work represents an example of actinide research in DCMP. Dávid has performed a comprehensive study of magnetic properties of isostructural and isoelectronic solid solutions of the superconducting itinerant 5f-electron (Ising-like) ferromagnet (FM) UCoGe with antiferromagnet (AFM) (Othorombic anisotropy) UIrGe. Polycrystals and single-crystals with different Co/Ir ratios were prepared and subsequently studied utilizing magnetization, AC susceptibility, specific heat, and electrical resistivity measurements. As the result of the study, the T-x phase diagram was constructed revealing that weak FM and superconductivity in UCoGe vanish already for very low Ir substitution for Co (x = 0.02). Likewise, the AFM of UIrGe is gradually suppressed exhibiting a rapid decrease in both Néel temperature and the critical field of the metamagnetic transition with decreasing Ir concentration, which both tend to vanish just above x = 0.8. The wide part of the T-x phase diagram in the range 0.02 ≤ x ≤ 0.8 is dominated by a correlated paramagnetic phase (CPM), which is also a substantial part of the H-T phase diagram of nonmagnetic heavy-fermion superconductor UTe2.
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