Critical behavior of the resistivity in YCo12B6 and GdCo12B6 intermetallics

Abstract

The electrical resistivity rho of the intermetallics YCo12B6 and GdCo12B6 has been measured in the temperature range of 80 K < T < 250 K, which embraces the second-order magnetic phase transition. From the temperature derivatives of rho(T), the critical exponent alpha of the specific heats has been determined. We found that the values of alpha are typical of a Heisenberg ferromagnet. The temperature derivatives of rho(T) are compared with the specific heat measurements. Also. the physical implications of the results are discussed. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.