Effect of swift heavy ions irradiation on single crystals of RCu2Ga2 (R = La, Ce, Pr, Nd and Gd)

Present study explores the use of swift heavy ion irradiation as a possible route to fabricate nanometer-scale magnetic objects from intermetallic rare earth-transition metal targets. N. Fujita et al studied ion-irradiation-induced ferromagnetism in FeRh. Amorphization of rare earth - cobalt intermetallic alloys by swift heavy-ion irradiation has been studied by M Ghidini et al. We have grown single crystals of tetragonal RCu2Ga2 (R = La, Ce, Pr, Nd and Gd), which is of ThCr2Si2 type structure (space group 14/mmm), by high temperature solution growth technique using Ga as flux. Apart from surface morphology, structural studies, we have measured the field and temperature dependence of magnetization and resistivity along the principal crystallographic directions, and the heat capacity. The studies of irradiation effect on RCu2Ga2 have been done and the magnetization versus magnetic field plot of pure and irradiated GdCu2Ga2 is shown in Fig.1. as a sample. Further, the complete set of irradiation plots along with the analysis for other rare earth in this series will be presented in the conference. (author)