High pressure and high magnetic field studies of the electronic transport properties of the antiferromagnet Eu₃Ir₄Sn₁₃

In this work we report the effects of hydrostatic pressure and magnetic field on the electronic transport properties of the antiferromagnetic compound Eu₃Ir₄Sn₁₃ (T_N ∼ 10 K). Single crystals of Eu₃Ir₄Sn₁₃ were synthesized using the Sn self-flux technique. DC electrical resistivity measurements as a function of temperature were performed by means of the four- probe technique. The high-temperature anomaly at T∗ ∼ 57 K attributed to a structural distortion of the Sn1Sn2₁₂ cages in Eu₃Ir₄Sn₁₃ is rapidly decreased to lower temperatures at a rate dT∗/dP 2 K/kbar, while the antiferromagnetic transition due to the Eu²⁺ ions is only weakly affected. Our data do not indicate any magnetoelastic effect associated with the structural instability at T∗ . Furthermore, the suppression of the lattice distortion by application of external pressure is not accompanied by the emergence of superconductivity, possibly due to strong magnetic correlations between the Eu²⁺ localized magnetic moments.