Magnetic and Electronic Properties of Heavy Lanthanides (Gd, Tb, Dy, Er, Ho, Tm)

Abstract

Rare earth metals (REM) occupy a special and important place in our lives. This became especially noticeable during the rapid development of industry in the industrial era of the twentieth century. The tendency of development of the rare-earth metals market certainly remains in the XXI century. According to experts estimates the industry demand for chemical compounds based on them will tend to grow during the nearest years until it reaches the market balance. At the same time, the practical use of high-purity rare-earth metals requires the most accurate understanding of the physical properties of metals, especially magnetic ones. Despite a certain decline in interest in the study of high-purity REM single crystals during the last decade, a number of scientific groups (Ames Lab, Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU), Baikov Institute of Metallurgy and Materials Science Russian Academy of Science (RAS)) are still conducting high-purity studies on high-purity metal samples. The present article is a combination of a review work covering the analysis of the main works devoted to the study of heavy REMs from gadolinium to thulium, as well as original results obtained at MSU. The paper considers the electronic properties of metals in terms of calculating the density of states, analyzes the regularities of the magnetic phase diagrams of metals, gives the original dependences of the Neel temperature and tricritical temperatures for Gd, Tb, Dy, Er, Ho, Tm, and also introduces a phenomenological parameter that would serve as an indicator of the phase transformation in heavy REMs.