Pressure effect on magnetic and transport properties of FeCr2S4

•Se doping makes the anomalies in magnetization shift toward lower temperatures.•Chemical pressure effects are in accord with hydrostatic pressure effects.•Magnetoresistance increases with increasing Se content.

In this paper, the influence of chemical pressure caused by Se substituting and hydrostatic pressure on magnetic and transport properties of FeCr2S4 have been investigated. In addition to a large irreversibility between zero-field-cooled (ZFC) and field-cooled (FC) magnetization under low magnetic field, FeCr2S4 polycrystalline sample also shows a cusp-like anomaly around 70 K and a step-like transition around 9 K. With increasing Se content, ferrimagnetic transition temperature decreases, irreversibility between ZFC and FC magnetization increases. At the same time, both the step-like transition and the cusp-like anomaly in magnetization shift to a lower temperature and disappears gradually. All the above effects caused by Se substituting are in accord with the effects caused by applying hydrostatic pressure. Furthermore, we found magnetoresistance increases with increasing Se content, and attributed it to the stabilization of magnetic polarons.