Magnetic properties of oxygen-reduced, rare-earth basedR1Ba2Cu3O7−xcompounds withR=GD,Dy,andHo

The bulk magnetic properties of tetragonal, oxygen-depleted, polycrystalline samples of sintered $R_1{\mathrm{Ba}}_2{\mathrm{Cu}}_3{\mathrm{O}}_{7-x}$ compounds with $x=0.95\mathrm{}$ have been investigated. Materials containing the rare-earth (RE) ions Gd, Dy, and Ho were studied. In each case, the magnetic susceptibility $\chi$ was described by a Curie-Weiss (CW) dependence with effective moments that were very nearly equal to the free-ion values— behavior that is very similar to the superconducting counterparts of these materials where the oxygen has not been depleted. The field dependence of the magnetization $M(H,T)\mathrm{}$ was found to be substantially modified by crystalline electric field effects and by the influence of RE-RE interactions.