Project Details

The project is devoted to experimental investigation of highly anisotropic compounds containing rare-earth (R) elements or uranium. Magnetic properties of these compounds are determined first of all by the anisotropic 4f (rare earth) or 5f (U) electronic shells, so the compounds have very strong magnetic anisotropy. For this reason, the study is performed on high-quality single crystals in high magnetic fields. We study magnetization, magnetic anisotropy, magnetic phase transitions and related electronic properties of compounds with the compositions R₂Fe₁₄Si₃, RFe₅Al₇ (with substitutions within the Fe sublattice), R₃Ru₄Al₁₂, compounds based on the itinerant metamagnet UCoAl, UN. One of the tasks is also to check the existence and possibility of single-crystal growth for new interesting compounds. The study combines both bulk and microscopic methods. Special attention is be paid to magnetoacoustics (ultrasound velocity and attenuation) which is a less-studied property but a source of important information on the formation of magnetic states in f-electron compounds.