Magnetic properties of the compounds R2CuIn3 (R=Tb,Dy,Ho,Er)

The crystal and magnetic structures of the R2CuIn3 (R=Tb,Dy,Ho and Er) compounds have been studied by X-ray and neutron powder diffraction. Moreover, the bulk magnetic properties have been investigated by magnetometric methods. All these compounds crystallize with the hexagonal CaIn2-type structure. At low temperatures they order antiferromagnetically with the Néel temperatures in the range from 37.6 K to 3.3 K found for R=Tb and Er, respectively. The magnetic structures can be described by the propagation vectors k = ( k x , k x , 0 ) with the value of k x varying with increasing number of 4f electrons.