Magnetization, Magnetocrystalline Anisotropy and the Crystalline Electric Field in Rare-Earth Al2 Compounds

Magnetization measurements are reported for single crystals of PrAl2 in the range from 4.2K to 30K for magnetic fields up to 150 kOe applied in the (100), (110) and (111) directions. For these measurements, together with the magnetization results obtained earlier for TbAl2 the authors give a quantitative quantum mechanical description of the magnetization and the related magnetocrystalline anisotropy in terms of a cubic crystalline electric field and an isotropic exchange interaction. The parameters used in this description can be unified to good approximation to all REAl2 intermetallic compounds where detailed experiments are available.