High-field soft-x-ray dichroism of a hard ferrimagnet with easy-plane anisotropy

We performed soft x-ray spectroscopic studies of the ferrimagnet TbFe5Al7 with strong easy-plane anisotropy in pulsed magnetic fields up to 29 T along with bulk magnetization and magnetostriction measurements. We observed pronounced amplitude changes of x-ray magnetic circular dichroism and x-ray absorption spectra at the field-induced magnetic transition. This microscopically evidences the simultaneous rotation of the Tb 4 f and Fe 3d magnetic moments from a collinear ferrimagnetic order along the [100] axis to a state with the moments close to [010], the other easy-axis direction of the tetragonal lattice in magnetic fields applied along the [100] axis. We determined the magnetic-anisotropy constant of TbFe5Al7 by simulating the high-field macro- and microscopic magnetization process using a two-sublattice model.

Automated summary

The study found that TbFe5Al7 undergoes a magnetic transition at high magnetic fields, with Tb 4 f and Fe 3d magnetic moments simultaneously rotating to another easy-axis direction. The magnetic-anisotropy constant of TbFe5Al7 was determined by simulating the magnetization process at high fields.