Mn2PtIn: A tetragonal Heusler compound with exchange bias behavior

Abstract

The structural and magnetic properties of a tetragonal Heusler compound Mn2PtIn are reported. Low temperature (5 K) magnetic measurements of the material show a hard magnetic behavior with relatively low saturation magnetization of 1.6 μB/f.u., suggesting ferrimagnetic ordering in the system. Moreover, observance of shifted field-cooled hysteresis loops indicates the presence of unidirectional exchange anisotropy resulting from nano-scale interaction between ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic clusters. An exchange bias (EB) field of 16 mT is measured at 5 K, with the value steadily decreasing with increasing temperature to zero at temperatures around 200 K. The EB behavior likely originates from the glassy nature of the low temperature magnetic state, as indicated by ac susceptibility and zero-field-cooled relaxation measurements.