Influence of Fe substitution on the structure and magnetic properties in Gd(Ni1−xFex)3 intermetallic compounds

In this paper, we present crystal structure, electronic structure and magnetic properties of pollicrystalline Gd(Ni1−xFex)3 intermetallic compounds. The rhombohedral PuNi3 type of crystal structure for the whole series was confirmed with the use of X-ray powder diffraction. The partial replacement of Ni by Fe atoms up to x ≤ 0.4 causes the increase in Curie temperature TC and next for 0.4 < x ≤ 1 a slow decrease in TC value. As it was also shown saturation magnetization of the examined samples monotonically decreases with increasing Ni/Fe substitution. The magnetocaloric effect (MCE) for several samples with TC values around the room temperature was estimated from magnetic isotherms. The decrease in magnetic entropy connected with the increase in magnetic disorder in 3d magnetic sublattice has been observed. Moreover some correlations between magnetic properties and electronic structure studied by X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) have been found.