Critical concentration for the onset of ferromagnetism in Pd-Ni alloys

Abstract

Pd-Ni alloys are of special interest as a system where a critical composition for the paramagnetic to ferromagnetic transition exists. Interpretation of the magnetization as a function of the field, temperature and concentration for this system is not quite straightforward and previous measurements have not examined the low field behaviour in detail. New data on this system have been obtained and careful analysis with the help of Arrott plots yield Curie temperatures T0 which extrapolate to the same value for the critical concentration as that found previously from the resistivity measurements. Existing susceptibility results for some paramagnetic Pd-Ni alloys appear to conform with this value for the critical concentration and in particular the specific heat data, where disagreement has been cited previously, are reanalysed and shown to be in agreement also with the authors value of 2.3+or-0.05 at% Ni.