Electron spin resonance of Gd3+ in trifluorides of La, Ce, Pr, and Nd

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Abstract
An EPR study of Gd3+‐doped single crystals of CeF3, LaF3, PrF3, and NdF3 has been made in order to study the systematics of spectra in these homologous isostructural hosts. The method of preparation of samples is presented. The measurements are carried out at all three—room, liquid nitrogen, and liquid helium—temperatures. Thus, the absolute signs of all the spin Hamiltonian parameters are determined from intensities of lines at liquid helium temperatures. The parameters are evaluated from a simultaneous fitting of all lines observed in the zx and xy planes in a rigorous least‐squares fitting procedure, which utilizes numerical diagonalization of the spin Hamiltonian matrix. As far as the systematics of the parameters are concerned, it is found that the parameter b02 varies linearly with the atomic radius of the host rare‐earth ion, while the parameter b22 does not show any such behavior. It it hoped that the experimental results presented in this paper would be helpful in further theoretical understanding of the interaction of the Gd3+ ion with its environment due to simplicity of the rare‐earth trifluoride crystal structure, in that in these crystals there are no water molecules present.