The mechanical and magnetic properties of the newly discovered MAB-phase class of materials based upon AlFe2B2 were investigated. The samples were synthesised from stoichiometric amounts of all constituent elements. X-ray diffraction shows that the main phase is orthorhombic with an elongated b-axis, similar to AlFe2B2. The low hardness and visual inspection of the samples after deformation indicate that these compounds are deformed via a delamination process. When substituting iron in AlFe2B2 with manganese, the magnetism in the system goes from being ferro- to antiferromagnetic via a disordered ferrimagnetic phase exhibited by AlFeMnB2. Density functional theory calculations indicate a weakening of the magnetic interactions among the transitions metal ions as iron is substituted by manganese in AlFe2B2. The Mn-Mn exchange interactions in AlMn2 B2 are found to be very small.
@article{arxiv.1811.12720,
title = {Magnetic and mechanical effects of Mn substitutions in AlFe2B2},
author = {Johan Cedervall and Mikael S. Andersson and Diana Iusan and Erna K. Delczeg-Czirjak and Ulf Jansson and Per Nordblad and Martin Sahlberg},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1811.12720},
year = {2019}
}