Phase diagrams of a Spin-1 Ising Superlattice

Hamid Ez-Zahraouy, Ahmed Kassou-Ou-Ali

Published 2004-11-29, updated 2004-12-01Version 2

The three-dimensional spin-1 Ising superlattice consisting of two different ferromagnetic materials with two different crystal fields $\Delta_1$ and $\Delta_2$ is considered in the mean field approximation. The phase diagrams are considered in the (t,$d_2$) plane for different ranges of variation of $d_1$ (t=T/J, $d_1$/J and $d_2$/J are the reduced temperature and crystal fields respectively). The phase diagrams exhibit a variety of multicritical points and reentrant and double reentrant behaviours. They are found to depend qualitatively and/or quantitatively on the thicknesses of the materials in a supercell. This has direct consequences on the nature of the magnetic states of superlattices with different thicknesses.