Revised Measurements and Interpretation of Magnetic Properties of Oriented CeF <inf>3</inf> Single Crystals

Abstract

© 2016, Springer Science+Business Media New York.We report the magnetic susceptibility and magnetization of the single-crystal CeF3 precisely measured in external magnetic field-directed B| | c and B⊥c in wide ranges of temperatures from 1.8 to 300 K and magnetic field strength of 0–40 kG. Magnetic susceptibility, magnetization, and Ce3 + Stark energies of CeF3 have been calculated in the framework of the crystal field theory; good agreement with the experimental data has been achieved in the whole range of temperatures and magnetic fields without taking into account the mixed-valent Ce3 +-Ce4 + behavior or super-exchange interaction of cerium ions that have been proposed before. Anomalous behavior of the magnetic susceptibility near T ∼ 50 K is naturally explained in the crystal field model.