Van Vleck paramagnetism and enhancement of effective moment with magnetic field in rare earth orthovanadate EuVO4

Abstract

The 4f^6 systems were hypothesized to possess non-magnetic (J = 0) ground state. However, all such systems have distinctly shown the presence of non-zero effective moment. In this context, a rare earth orthovanadate EuVO4, which in spite of having J = 0 ground state, possess non-zero magnetic moment. Our studies reveal three different regions in this compound, boundaries of which are demarcated from susceptibility data. The high temperature susceptibility exhibits linear dependence on temperature which arises due to tetragonal crystal field, followed by a temperature independent plateau like region, ascribed to Van Vleck paramagnetism. At low temperatures, Curie-Weiss like behaviour is observed, which arise due to magnetic Eu2+ moments and results in non-zero effective moment. Our analysis reveals that the separation ({\lambda}) between the J = 0 and J = 1 states decreases on increasing the external magnetic field which leads to an enhanced effective moment at higher fields.