NUKLEONIKA 2007, 52(Supplement 1):S71-S75

STRUCTURAL AND MAGNETIC INVESTIGATIONS OF Sc(Fe1-xNix)2 COMPOUNDS BY MEANS OF MÖSSBAUER EFFECT AND NEUTRON DIFFRACTION

Marek Wiertel1,2, Zbigniew Surowiec1, Jan Sarzyñski1, Mieczys³aw Budzyñski1, Anatoly I. Beskrovnyi2

1 Institute of Physics, M. Curie-Sk³odowska University, 1 M. Curie-Sk³odowska Sq., 20-031 Lublin, Poland
2 Frank Laboratory of Neutron Physics, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, 141980 Dubna, Russia

The structural and microscopic magnetic properties of the pseudobinary Sc(Fe1-xNix)2 system were studied by XRD and Mössbauer measurements in the range of 0.10 £ x £ 0.60. All investigated samples have the cubic C15-type structure. Both the magnetic hyperfine field on 57Fe and the Curie temperature decrease with increasing Ni content and the system becomes paramagnetic for x » 0.60 at room temperature. The form and temperature dependences of the Mössbauer spectra for 0.40 £ x £ 0.50 indicate the coexistence of paramagnetic and ferromagnetic regions in the samples and occurrence of magnetic clusters with a wide distribution of the Curie temperatures. As follows from the near to zero values of quadrupole shifts in Mössbauer spectra it results that a <100> direction is a local easy magnetization axis for x ³ 0.10.