We have synthesized single crystals of CeZnAl3, which is a new member of the family of the Ce-based intermetallics CeTX3 (T = transition metal, X= Si, Ge, Al), crystallizing in the non-centrosymmetric tetragonal BaNiSn3-type structure. Magnetization, specific heat and resistivity measurements all show that CeZnAl3 orders magnetically below around 4.4 K. Furthermore, magnetization measurements exhibit a hysteresis loop at low temperatures and fields, indicating the presence of a ferromagnetic component in the magnetic state. This points to a different nature of the magnetism in CeZnAl3 compared to the other isostructural CeTAl3 compounds. Resistivity measurements under pressures up to 1.8 GPa show a moderate suppression of the ordering temperature with pressure, suggesting that measurements to higher pressures are required to look for quantum critical behavior.
@article{arxiv.1804.05477,
title = {Structural and magnetic properties of CeZnAl$_3$ single crystals},
author = {Qian Liu and Bin Shen and Michael Smidman and Rui Li and Zhiyong Nie and Xiaoyan Xiao and Ye Chen and Hanoh Lee and Huiqiu Yuan},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1804.05477},
year = {2018}
}