Magnetic phase diagram of CePt3B1-xSix

Abstract

We present a study of the main bulk properties (susceptibility, magnetization, resistivity and specific heat) of CePt3B1−xSix, an alloying system that crystallizes in a noncentrosymmetric lattice, and derive the magnetic phase diagram. The materials at the end point of the alloying series have previously been studied, with CePt3B established as a material with two different magnetic phases at low temperatures (antiferromagnetic below TN = 7.8 K, weakly ferromagnetic below TC ≈ 5 K), while CePt3Si is a heavy fermion superconductor (Tc = 0.75 K) coexisting with antiferromagnetism (TN = 2.2 K). From our experiments we conclude that the magnetic phase diagram is divided into two regions. In the region of low Si content (up to x ∼ 0.7) the material properties resemble those of CePt3B. Upon increasing the Si concentration further the magnetic ground state continuously transforms into that of CePt3Si. In essence, we argue that CePt3B can be understood as a low pressure variant of CePt3Si.