Study of Magnetic Structure of Ferrimagnet Holmium Iron Garnet by Neutron Diffraction at Room Temperature

Polycrystalline ferrimagnetic holmium iron garnet (Ho3Fe5O12) was prepared by ball mill assisted solid state reaction method. The phase purity of the prepared sample was verified by X-Ray diffraction study. The temperature and field dependent magnetization confirms the ferrimagnetic nature of the title compound at room temperature and also reveals that the compensation takes place similar to 150 K. Further, the compound was studied by neutron diffraction (ND) in ambient condition to understand the crystal and magnetic structure in details. The obtained ND data was analyzed by Rietveld method, it is confirmed that the Ho3Fe5O12 crystalizes in cubic space group I alpha-3d (space group # 230) with cell parameter 12.369 angstrom. The magnetic Bragg peaks in the ND data could be indexed with propagation vector k (= 0 0 0). The results presented in this paper, enable us to understand the magnetism of the title compound more comprehensively.