Magnetic properties of Pu–Ga alloys

The magnetization and magnetic susceptibility of polycrystalline Pu3Ga compound and Pu0.92Ga0.08 alloy have been measured as functions of temperature (between 2 and 300 K) and external magnetic dc field (from 1.0 to 5.0 T) and ac field. The detailed analysis indicates the antiferromagnetic ordering in both compounds. The dynamic magnetic susceptibility shows sharp peaks at 40.3 K in Pu3Ga and at 30.0 K in Pu0.92Ga0.08 that correspond to Néel temperatures. The high-temperature behavior of static susceptibility gives evidence that it has both Curie–Weiss and enhanced Pauli contributions and the positive magnitudes of paramagnetic Curie temperature is indicative of the presence of competing the nearest-neighbor and next-nearest-neighbor exchange interactions in both compounds.