Publikationsrepositorium - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

Uranium-based intermetallic compounds often display very strong magnetic anisotropies, the energy of which is usually not directly accessible by common experimental methods. Here, we report on static- and pulsed-field studies of U₃Cu₄Ge₄. This material orders ferromagnetically at T_C = 73 K with the easy magnetization direction along the a axis and a strong bc-plane anisotropy. The magnetization measured for fields along the hard b direction displays a first-order magnetization process that can be described well by use of a phenomenological theory yielding anisotropy constants up to the sixth order. This phenomenological description,working excellently for U₃Cu₄Ge₄, may also be applied for other uranium-based compounds.