Angular dependence of saturation magnetization in single crystals with uniaxial magnetic anisotropy

•Saturation magnetizations (MS) along easy and hard axes varies by 7.9% in Y2Co7 at RT.•The effect of sample shape on the evaluation of MS anisotropy was studied.•The angular dependence of MS was obtained experimentally for Y2Co7 single crystal. A remarkable feature of some high anisotropy intermetallic compounds based on R-T systems, where R stands for a rare earth atom and T is a 3d transition metal element, is a prominent difference of saturation magnetization along easy and hard magnetization axes: MEA and MHA. This anisotropy of saturation magnetization needs to be considered when magnetization curves are evaluated to derive the magnetic anisotropy constants. We investigated the angular dependence of saturation magnetization to verify experimentally the assumption of Ms(θ)=MEAcos2θ+MHAsin2θ using a single crystal of Y2Co7, which has an uniaxial magnetic anisotropy and saturation magnetization difference of 7.9% at 300 K. Our proposed verification approach is universal and would be relevant for any intermetallic compound with a prominent anisotropy of saturation magnetization.