HIGH-FIELD MAGNETIZATION OF NDCO5 AND NDCO5H3 SINGLE-CRYSTALS

High-field magnetization has been measured for single-crystalline NdCo5 and NdCo5H3 for 4.2 K up to 40 T. NdCo5 is a highly anisotropic collinear ferromagnet with the easy direction of magnetization along the a-axis in the basal plane. It exhibits a first-order spin-orientation transition to the applied field direction along the hard direction (c-axis) at about 35 T with hysteresis. In NdCo5H3 the easy direction deviates from the basal plane. The magnetic stricture becomes noncollinear due to the significant weakening of the Nd-Co intersublattice exchange interaction in the hydride. The Co moment becomes lower by about 25% than that in the parent compound.