An anomalous butterfly-shaped magnetoresistance loop in an alloy, Tb4LuSi3

Abstract

Magnetic-field (H) induced first-order magnetic transition and the assiciated electronic phase-separation phenomena are active topics of research in magnetism. Magnetoresistance (MR) is a key property to probe these phenomena and, in literature, a butterfly-shaped MR loop has been noted while cycling the field, with the envelope curve lying below the virgin curve in MR versus H plots of such materials. Here, we report an opposite behavior of MR loop for an alloy, Tb4LuSi3, at low temperatures (<<20 K) in the magnetically ordered state. Such an anomalous curve reveals unexpected domination of higher resistive high-field phase in electronic conduction, unlike in other materials where conducion is naturally by low-resistive high-field phase that follows first-order transition. The observed features reveal an unusual electronic phase separation, namely involving high-resistive high-field phase and low-resistive virgin phase.

Submitted for publication on 16 Dec 2009

References in corpus (3)

• Field-induced first-order magnetic phase transition in an intermetallic compound, Nd7Rh3: Evidence for kinetic-hindrance, phase co-existence and percolative conduction
• Sharp fall of electrical resistance for a small application of magnetic field on a metastable form of a compound, Tb5Si3, under pressure
• Influence of pressure on the magnetic behavior and the anomalous magnetoresistance in Tb5Si3

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Resistivity minimum in diluted metallic magnets
• Magnetic anomalies in single crystalline Tb5Si3
• Evolution of a metastable phase with a magnetic phase coexistence phenomenon and its unusual sensitivity to magnetic field cycling in the alloys Tb5-xLuxSi3 (x <= 0.7)
• Magnetic-field induced melting of long-range magnetic order akin to Kitaev insulators in the metallic compound Tb5Si3