Magnetic Properties Of Single-Crystalline Cecuga3

The magnetic behavior of single-crystalline CeCuGa3 has been investigated. The compound forms in a tetragonal BaAl4-type structure consisting of rare-earth planes separated by site-disordered Cu-Ga layers. If the Cu-Ga site disorder is reduced, CeCuGa3 adopts the related, likewise tetragonal, BaNiSn3-type structure, in which the inversion symmetry is lost. We report on a detailed study of single crystals with the centrosymmetric structure variant which exhibit ferromagnetic order below approximate to 4 K with a strong, planar anisotropy. The magnetic behavior above the transition temperature can be well understood by the crystal-field splitting of the 4 f Hund's rule ground-state multiplet F-2(5/2) of Ce3+.