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The successful growth of single crystals of a cubic Laves-phase material HoAl2 with the space group Fd-3m is reported. The crystals were grown by a floating-zone method with five laser di-odes as a heat source. Al-rich feed rods were prepared for compensation of heavy evaporation during the growth. The nominal ratio for the feed rods was optimized as Ho : Al = 1 : 2.5. Single crystals of HoAl2 with a length of 50 mm were firstly grown in this technique. Obtaining the large-size crystal by the floating-zone method enabled us to systematically explore the physical properties using the same batch crystal. The crystal possessed a second-ordered ferromagnetic transition at 29 K and a first-ordered spin-reorientation transition at 20 K. The bulk physical properties such as specific heat, magnetic susceptibility, isothermal magnetization, and thermal expansion measurements were measured. Also, a magnetocaloric effect was evaluated by the magnetic entropy change. We systematically demonstrate that anisotropic physical properties along the principal axes ([100], [110], and [111]) emerged below the magnetically ordered states, in contrast to the isotropic behavior in the paramagnetic state.

Rights:

• Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 International
  

Keyword: HoAl2, crystal growth, laser floating-zone technique, bulk physical properties, magnetocaloric effect

Date published: 2023-05-03

Publisher: MDPI AG

Journal:

• Crystals (ISSN: 20734352) vol. 13 issue. 5 p. 760-760

Funding:

Manuscript type: Publisher's version (Version of record)

MDR DOI:

First published URL: https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst13050760

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Updated at: 2024-01-26 08:59:47 +0900

Published on MDR: 2024-01-26 12:30:21 +0900