Journal of Crystal Growth, Vol.419, 37-41, 2015
Single crystal growth and characterization of GdRh2Si2
High-temperature indium flux growth was applied to prepare single crystals of GdRh2Si2 by a modified Bridgman method leading to mm-sized single crystals with a platelet habitus. Specific heat and susceptibility data of GdRh2Si2 exhibit a pronounced anomaly at T-N = 107 K, where the antiferromagnetic ordering sets in Magnetic measurements on the single crystals were performed down to T=2 K in external fields from B=0 to 9T applied along the [100]-, [110]- and [001]-direction of the tetragonal lattice. The effective magnetic moment determined from a Curie-Weiss fit agrees well with experimental values from literature, but is larger than the theoretically predicted value. Electrical transport data recorded for current flow parallel and perpendicular to the [001]-direction show a large anisotropy below T-N. The residual resistivity ratio RRR = rho(300) (K)/rho(0) similar to 23 demonstrates that we succeeded in preparing high-quality crystals using high-temperature indium flux-growth. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved,
Keywords:Bridgman technique;Growth from high-temperature solutions;Single crystal growth;Gadolinium compounds;Magnetic materials;Rare earth compounds