FE-57 HYPERFINE FIELDS AND MAGNETIC-ANISOTROPY OF SM2FE17NX INTERSTITIALS WITH INTERMEDIATE NITROGEN CONCENTRATIONS

From the compositional dependence of the hyperfine fields at the iron sites of Sm2Fe17Nx alloys with 0 less-than-or-equal-to x less-than-or-equal-to 2.94, evidence for cone anisotropy for x=0.4 and uniaxial anisotropy at least for x greater-than-or-equal-to 0.81 has been found. The analysis of the volume dependence of the hyperfine fields allowed us to separate contributions arising from the anisotropy of the orbital component of the iron moment and from the change of the spin moments owing to magnetovolume and bonding effects. The temperature dependence of the average hyperfine field and of the hyperfine fields at the four different nonequivalent Fe sites suggests weak itinerant ferromagnetism for Sm2Fe17N2.94.