Thermal Expansion and Magnetostriction of Laves-Phase Alloys: Fingerprints of Ferrimagnetic Phase Transitions

The magneto–elastic coupling effect correlates to the changes of moment and lattice upon magnetic phase transition. Here, we report that, in the pseudo-binary Laves-phase Tb(1-x)Dy(x)Co(2) system (x = 0.0, 0.7, and 1.0), thermal expansion and magnetostriction can probe the ferrimagnetic transitions from cubic to rhombohedral phase (in TbCo(2)), from cubic to tetragonal phase (in DyCo(2)), and from cubic to rhombohedral then to tetragonal phase (in Tb(0)(.)(3)Dy(0.7)Co(2)). Furthermore, a Landau polynomial approach is employed to qualitatively investigate the thermal expansion upon the paramagnetic (cubic) to ferrimagnetic (rhombohedral or tetragonal) transition, and the calculated thermal expansion curves agree with the experimental curves. Our work illustrates the correlation between crystal symmetry, magnetostriction, and thermal expansion in ferrimagnetic Laves-phase alloys and provides a new perspective to investigate ferrimagnetic transitions.