Martensite and spin-glass transition of a Cu-Zn-Al-Fe shape memory alloy single crystal

Summary form only given. In spite of many researches carried out on Cu-Zn-Al shape-memory alloys, only a few studies have been reported on the magnetic properties. We report that a quarternary Cu-Zn-A1-Fe single crystal simultaneously shows shape memory effect and spin glass behaviour. All the measurements have been made on a Cu-17.25 Zn-15.00 Al-1.00 Fe (at%) single crystal grown by Bridgman method with element purity more than 99.99% in vacuum-sealed quartz capsules. DC magnetization and magnetic hysteresis measurements were carried out using a commercial superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometer in temperature range 8 /spl tilde/ 300 K and in applied magnetic fields ranging from 0 Oe to 20 kOe. The spontaneous measurements of electrical resistivity of complex impedance versus temperature was performed to determine the martensite starting temperature (M/sub s/). X-ray diffraction, SEM, EPMA and optical microscope were used to analyze the microstructure and the prepicitates.