4. Intermetallic materials

4.1 Rare earth metal compounds - transition metals: general information

From the 1960s onwards, thanks to the availability of rare-earth elements in large quantities and of high purity, many research laboratories became interested in studying their alloys, particularly with transition metals. Indeed, we saw in the article [M 4 600] , (§ 3.1) that condensed matter magnetism results from a set of spin moments coupled together by exchange interactions, a set of orbital moments coupled to the crystal lattice by the crystal field and an interaction between these two sets, the spin-orbit coupling. The preponderance of these contributions differs depending on whether we consider, in isolation, transition metals...