Magnetic and structural properties of nanocrystalline PrCo3

Structural and magnetic properties of nanocrystalline PrCo3 obtained from high energy milling technique were presented. These properties were studied by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), Curie temperature determination and magnetic properties measurements. The coercive field of 55 kOe measured at 10K was obtained after annealing at 1023K for 30 mn and no saturation reached at room temperature for applied field of 90kOe. We have completed this experimental study by micromagnetic modeling in order to get a qualitative picture of the microstructure effect on the macroscopic magnetization curve. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations have been performed in order to obtain the electronic structure of PrCox compounds, where x = 2, 3 and 5