Magnetic properties of single-crystalline UCu3Al2

UCu₃Al₂ crystallizes in an ordered variant of the hexagonal CaCu₅ structure. By neutron powder-diffraction, the U atoms were found to occupy the 1a sites, while the 2c sites are occupied by Cu atoms only and a random occupation of the 3g sites by the remaining Cu and Al is found. The magnetic susceptibility, measured on a single crystal grown by the Czochralski triarc technique, is found to be maximal within the hexagonal basal plane with a maximum at about 10 K. For fields applied within the basal plane, the magnetization at 4.2 K exhibits a slight S-shape starting slightly below 15 T. No such anomalies are found for fields applied along the c-axis where the magnetic response is found to be much lower. No additional magnetic peaks, which could be related with long-range antiferromagnetic ordering, were detected in the neutron powder-patterns at low temperatures