Abstract
The growth and characterization of single grains of the primitive icosahedral quasicrystal R–Mg–Cd (R=Y, Gd, Tb or Dy) are described. From the thermodynamic properties, it is confirmed that the system is a spin glass exhibiting the characteristic spin-freezing transition of such systems. There is no evidence for two distinct freezing transitions previously observed for polygrain samples. The bulk magnetic properties and the effect of crystalline electric fields on the spin-freezing temperature are found to be very similar to those of the face-centred icosahedral quasicrystal R–Mg–Zn.
Acknowledgements
We thank T. J. Sato for useful discussions. Research at Stanford was supported by the Division of Materials Research, National Science Foundation, under grant DMR-0134613. T. Huie was partially supported by the Stanford University Summer Research College program. Ames Laboratory is operated for the US Department of Energy under contract W-7405-ENG-82. This work was supported by the Director for Energy Research, Office of Basic Energy Sciences.