Magnetic ordering and crystalline electric field splitting in Nd3Pd20Si6

Abstract At the temperatures T N1 ≈2.4 K and T N2 ≈0.7 K, the cubic intermetallic compound Nd 3 Pd 20 Si 6 undergoes second order magnetic phase transitions. Here we report on the magnetic structures obtained from low-temperature neutron diffraction data by using a He dilution refrigerator, and on the crystalline electric field splitting of the Nd 3+ ground state multiplet 4 I 9/2 obtained from inelastic neutron scattering data.