Abstract
Icosahedral quasicrystals containing heavy lanthanoids L, namely Ho, Er or Tm, have been discovered in the Zn77Fe7Sc16–xLx alloy systems. The solubility limit of the lanthanoid is approximately half of the Sc atoms. All these quasicrystals belong to p-type and are stable at approximately 973 K. The temperature dependence of the magnetic susceptibility of the Zn77Fe7Sc8Tm8 quasicrystal follows the Curie–Weiss law and exhibits spin-glass-like behaviour with a freezing temperature of 9 K. The Curie constants obtained by Curie–Weiss fit are larger than those calculated by the Lande g-factor of free Tm3+ ions based on Hund's rule, assuming all magnetization is caused by Tm atoms only. It is deduced that both Tm and Fe atoms exhibit magnetic moments. This is the first example of a stable icosahedral quasicrystal containing two types of magnetic atoms: Fe and the lanthanoids.
Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to the Research Center for Molecular-Scale Nanoscience, the Institute for Molecular Science for assistance in obtaining the experimental data of magnetism. We also thank Dr M. Fujiwara and N. Miyazaki for their cooperation. This work was partly supported by a Grant-in-Aid for the Scientific Research of Priority Areas ‘Panoscopic Assembling and High Ordered Functions for Rare Earth Materials’.