Magnetic properties, Mössbauer effect and first principle calculations study of laves phase HfFe<Subscript>2</Subscript>

The magnetic properties and hyperfine interaction parameters for Laves phase HfFe<Subscript>2</Subscript> with C14 type structure are studied using SQUID magnetometer and Mössbauer measurement. The saturation magnetization, remanent magnetization, coercive field, magnetic moment per unit formula and the hyperfine magnetic field at Fe site are reported. In addition, a detailed theoretical study of the electronic structure and hyperfine magnetic fields of the two possible HfFe<Subscript>2</Subscript> structures, C15 and C14, is presented. Using the full-potential linearized augmented plane wave (FP-LAPW) method as implemented in the WIEN 97 package, the equilibrium volume, bulk moduli, magnetic moments and hyperfine magnetic fields for the two structures are calculated. The obtained results are compared with the measured data. Copyright EDP Sciences/Società Italiana di Fisica/Springer-Verlag 2006