ANISOTROPIC MAGNETIC AND SUPERCONDUCTING PROPERTIES OF DYNI2B2C ALIGNED POWDER

Magnetic susceptibility on basal-plane aligned DyNi2B2C powder reveals a strong anisotropic magnetic and superconducting properties for this magnetic superconductor. The intrinsic room temperature normal-state magnetic anisotropy supplies the preferred tetragonal basal-plane alig nment. The observed antiferromagnetic Neel temperature T-N(Dy) of 12.9 K is higher than 10-10.8 K observed for the bulk sample. Since the no rmal state magnetic susceptibility is very small for both applied fiel d directions near superconducting T-c onset of 4.2 K, the observed sup erconducting anisotropy can be attributed to the anisotropic supercurr ent distribution due to the anisotropic geometric shape of aligned mic rocrystalline powder.