Single Crystal Growth and Magnetic Anisotropic Study of SmCrGe₃ with Cr Linear Chain

Mingyu Xu¹, Xianglin Ke², Sergey L. Bud'ko³, Paul C. Canfield³, Weiwei Xie^1*<br/><br/>1. Department of Chemistry, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824<br/>2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824<br/>3. Division of Materials Science, Ames Laboratory, Ames, IA, 50010<br/><br/>SmCrGe₃ was reported in the polycrystalline, which has ferromagnetic order occurring at 155 K [1]. To study the magnetic behaviors of SmCrGe₃, herein, the single crystals of SmCrGe₃ were grown using high temperature flux method. According to the single crystal X-ray diffraction, SmCrGe3 crystallizes in the hexagonal LaCrGe₃-type structure with Cr linear chain along the <i>c</i>-axis, which forms the face-sharing Cr-centered octahedra aligned along the <i>c</i>-axis. Compared with itinerant magnet LaCrGe₃, SmCrGe₃ offers the opportunity to understand the interaction between localized 4<i>f</i> election and itinerant electron in this quasi-one-dimensional system and the role of interaction played in domain pining changing [2], which may explain “one domain” behavior in LaCrGe₃ single crystal. Transport, magnetization, and specific heat measurements are taken. SmCrGe₃ behaves as a hard ferromagnetic material, which is different from other <i>RE</i>CrGe₃ (<i>RE</i> = La - Nd). Coercivity as the function of temperature and field-dependent pinning change are given, and the results will be discussed in detail.<br/><br/>[1] Haiying Bie, et al. <i>Chem. Mater.</i> <b>2007</b>, <i>19</i>, 4613-4620.<br/>[2] M Xu, et al. <i>Phys. Rev. B</i> <b>2023</b>, <i>107</i>, 134437.