ACTA

Spinodal Decomposition of Magnetic Ions in Eu-Codoped Ge_1-xCr_xTe

A. Podgórni^a, L. Kilanski^a, W. Dobrowolski^a, M. Górska^a, A. Reszka^a, V. Domukhovski^a, B.J. Kowalski^a, B. Brodowska^a, J.R. Anderson^b, N.P. Butch^b, V.E. Slynko^c and E.I. Slynko^c
^aInstitute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, al. Lotników 32/46, 02-668 Warsaw, Poland
^bDepartment of Physics and Center for Nanophysics and Advanced Materials, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
^cInstitute of Materials Science Problems, Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, 5 Wilde Str., 274001 Chernovtsy, Ukraine

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We present the experimental evidence for the presence of spinodal decomposition of the magnetic ions in the Ge_{1 - x - y}Cr_xEu_yTe samples with chemical composition varying in the range of 0.015 ≤ x ≤ 0.057 and 0.003 ≤ y ≤ 0.042. The ferromagnetic transition at temperatures 50 ≤ T ≤ 57 K was observed, independent of the chemical composition. The long-range carrier mediated itinerant magnetic interactions seem to be responsible for the observed ferromagnetic order. The magnetic irreversibility with coercive field H_C = 5 - 63 mT and the saturation magnetization M_S ≈ 2 - 6 emu/g are found to strongly depend on the chemical composition of the alloy.

DOI: 10.12693/APhysPolA.122.1012
PACS numbers: 72.80.Ga, 75.40.Cx, 75.40.Mg, 75.50.Pp