Ferrimagnetism and compensation temperature in spin-1/2 Ising trilayers

The mean-field and effective-field approximations are applied in the study of magnetic and thermodynamic properties of a spin-1/2 Ising system containing three layers, each of which is composed exclusively of one out of two possible types of atoms, A or B. The A-A and B-B bonds are ferromagnetic while the A-B bonds are antiferromagnetic. The occurrence of a compensation phenomenon is verified and the compensation and critical temperatures are obtained as functions of the Hamiltonian parameters. We present phase diagrams dividing the parameter space in regions where the compensation phenomenon is present or absent and a detailed discussion about the influence of each parameter on the overall behavior of the system is made.