Anisotropic Magnetic Properties of Nonsymmorphic Semimetallic Single Crystal NdSbTe

Abstract

The crystal structure and magnetic, electronic, and thermal properties of a NdSbTe single crystal were examined by X-ray diffraction, magnetic and specific heat Cp(T) measurements, and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. NdSbTe undergoes an antiferromagnetic ordering at TN ≈ 2.9 K, which is obviously shown from χ(T) and Cp(T). With increasing H, a spin-flop transition is induced along the c axis, and subsequently AFM disappeared at H ≤ 0.4 T and H ≤ 2.5 T along H||c and H||ab, respectively. This remarkable observation shows that the ordered Nd3+ moments lie in the c axis and that there is the existence of an anisotropy scenario. The estimated magnetic anisotropy with χ||c (0.63)/χ||ab (0.036) is 17.5 at temperature 1.8 K. An analysis of specific heat capacity reveals the significant contribution of crystal field effects at high temperature. We carried out DFT calculations to predict the magnetic ground state and the electronic properties of NdSbTe. Our calculations revealed that the magnetic ground state is AFM with spins aligned ferromagnetically along the b axis and antiferromagnetically along the c axis. The calculated electronic band of NdSbTe exhibits a Dirac semimetal material nature.