Optical probing of the antiferromagnetic phase transition in the heavy-electron compounds U2Zn17 and UCu5

Abstract

We have investigated the complete electrodynamic response of the heavy-electron compounds U2Zn17 and UCu5. Particular emphasis has been devoted to the optical evidence of the antiferromagnetic phase transitions at 9.7 K and 15 K for U2Zn17 and UCu5, respectively. In UCu5, we found an absorption in the far infrared, which is ascribed to excitations across a spin-density-wave-type gap. This feature is absent in U2Zn17. We argue that UCu5 belongs to a characteristically different class of antiferromagnets than U2Zn17 which represents the class of heavy-electron compounds with localized magnetic moments.