Giant coercivity induced by perpendicular anisotropy in Mn2.42Fe0.58Sn single crystals

Abstract

We report the discovery of a giant out-of-plane coercivity in the Fe-doped Mn3Sn single crystals. The compound of Mn2.42Fe0.58Sn exhibits a series of magnetic transitions accompanying with large magnetic anisotropy and electric transport properties. Compared with the ab-plane easy axis in Mn3Sn, it switches to the c-axis in Mn2.42Fe0.58Sn, producing a sufficiently large uniaxial anisotropy. At 2 K, a giant out-of-plane coercivity (Hc) up to 3 T was observed, which originates from the large uniaxial magnetocrystalline anisotropy. The modified Sucksmith-Thompson method was used to determine the values of the second-order and the fourth-order magnetocrystalline anisotropy constants K1 and K2, resulting in values of 6.0 * 104 J/m3 and 4.1 * 105 J/m3 at 2 K, respectively. Even though the Curie temperature (TC) of 200 K for Mn2.42Fe0.58Sn is not high enough for direct application, our research presents a valuable case study of a typical uniaxial anisotropy material.