Exploring the effects of dimensionality on the magnetic properties of intermetallic nanowires

Correlated electron intermetallic bulk systems exhibit exciting phenomena, such as unconventional superconductivity, heavy fermion behavior, magnetic ordering, and quantum criticality. However, such exciting properties in related systems with reduced dimensionality are rather unexplored and unpredictable. In this work, we explore the routes for synthesizing nanowires of the intermetallic antiferromagnet compound GdIn3 by an innovative method: the metallic-flux nanonucleation (MFNN). This technique allows the simultaneous synthesis of bulk GdIn3 single crystals (T-N(3D) = 45 K) and their low-dimensional (LD) analogs, which nucleate with diameter d approximate to 200 nm and length l approximate to 30 mu m inside pores of an Al2O3 template. Both systems were studied by means of Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS), magnetic susceptibility, heat capacity and electron spin resonance (ESR) measurements. Interestingly, the metallic nanowires show a drastic suppression of the antiferromagnetic ordering to T-N(LD) = 4 K. These observations suggest the presence of LD magnetic frustration in this compound and possibly open a new route to explore the role of low-dimensionality in strongly correlated materials. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (AU)