Putative complex ferrimagnetic behavior of crnimnal

We report a primary investigation of structural and magnetic properties of equiatomic Heusler alloy CrNiMnAl. Room temperature x-ray diffraction pattern confirms the cubic structure (F4¯3m space group) with lattice constant of a=5.80 Å. The temperature dependent magnetization hints complex magnetic nature of CrNiMnAl with a low temperature transition around 40 K along with bifurcation of zero-field cooled and field-cooled warming curves. Magnetization versus magnetic field isotherm at 3 K resembles the ferrimagnetic-like behavior. It does not saturate in an applied field of 50 kOe and exhibits hysteresis with a retentive magnetization of about 1.9x10−2 μB/f.u. and coercive magnetic field of about 2.88 kOe. The isotherms at 30 K and 300 K also do not saturate in 50 kOe while exhibiting finite coercive magnetic fields of about 0.18 kOe. Overall, non-zero coercive magnetic field, non-saturating behavior, low magnetic moment probably favor the compensated ferrimagnetic nature of CrNiMnAl with high transition temperature.