Doping site induced alteration of incommensurate antiferromagnetic ordering in Fe-doped MnNiGe alloys

The magnetic structure of Fe-doped MnNiGe alloys of nominal compositions MnNi0.75Fe0.25Ge and Mn0.85Fe0.15NiGe has been explored through detailed neutron powder diffraction (NPD) study in ambient and high-pressure (6 kbar) conditions. Both these alloys crystallize with Ni2In-type hexagonal structure (with P63/mmc space group) at room temperature and undergo a martensitic transition to low-temperature TiNiSi-type orthorhombic structure (with space group Pnma). Both the alloys show incommensurate antiferromagnetic ordering at the low-temperature martensitic phase. However, the modulation of the magnetic structures depends strongly on the doping site of Fe. The incommensurate propagation vector k for MnNi0.75Fe0.25Ge and Mn0.85Fe0.15NiGe alloys are found to be (0.1790(1),0,0) and (0.1543(3),0,0), respectively at 1.5 K, and these remain almost unchanged with increasing sample temperature under ambient conditions. The application of the external pressure results in a significant effect on both martensitic transition temperature and low-temperature magnetic structure. The propagation vectors k for both the alloys show a monotonic decrease with increasing sample temperature in the presence of external pressure. Interestingly, no sign of the magnetically ordered hexagonal austenite phase was observed in any alloys down to the lowest measurement temperature.