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Title: Tricritical point from high-field magnetoelastic and metamagnetic effects in UN

Journal Article · · Scientific Reports
 [1];  [1];  [2]; ORCiD logo [2];  [3];  [2];  [4];  [5];  [1]
  1. Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
  2. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  3. Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States); Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV (United States). Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry, High Pressure Science and Engineering Center
  4. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Maria Curie-Sklodowska Univ., Lublin (Poland). Inst. of Physics
  5. European Commission, Karlsruhe (Germany). Joint Research Centre
+ Show Author Affiliations

Uranium nitride (UN) is one of the most studied actinide materials as it is a promising fuel for the next generation of nuclear reactors. Despite large experimental and theoretical efforts, some of the fundamental questions such as degree of 5 f–electron localization/delocalization and its relationship to magneto-vibrational properties are not resolved yet. We show that the magnetostriction of UN measured in pulsed magnetic fields up to 65 T and below the Néel temperature is large and exhibits complex behavior with two transitions. While the high field anomaly is a field-induced metamagnetic-like transition and affects both magnetisation and magnetostriction, the low field anomaly does not contribute to the magnetic susceptibility. Our data suggest a change in the nature of the metamagnetic transition from first to second order-like at a tricritical point at T tri ~24 K and H tri ~52 T. The induced magnetic moment at 60 T might suggest that only one subset of magnetic moments has aligned along the field direction. Using the results obtained here we have constructed a magnetic phase diagram of UN. Our studies demonstrate that dilatometry in high fields is an effective method to investigate the magneto-structural coupling in actinide materials.

Research Organization:
Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22); National Science Foundation (NSF)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC07-05ID14517
OSTI ID:
1395024
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1407862; OSTI ID: 1412856; OSTI ID: 1498253
Journal Information:
Scientific Reports, Journal Name: Scientific Reports Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 7; ISSN 2045-2322
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Negative thermal expansion and antiferromagnetism in the actinide oxypnictide NpFeAsO journal May 2012
Thermal expansion and crystal structure of FeSi between 4 and 1173 K determined by time-of-flight neutron powder diffraction journal March 2002
Uranium azide photolysis results in C–H bond activation and provides evidence for a terminal uranium nitride journal July 2010

Cited By (4)

Lewis acid capping of a uranium( v ) nitride via a uranium( iii ) azide molecular square journal January 2020
Combination of thermal and electric properties’ measurement techniques in a single setup suitable for radioactive materials in controlled environments and based on the 3 ω approach journal April 2018
Fiber Bragg Grating Dilatometry in Extreme Magnetic Field and Cryogenic Conditions journal November 2017
Magnetotransport as a probe of phase transformations in metallic antiferromagnets: The case of UIrS i 3 journal July 2019

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