Magnetic measurements on Cd1−xCrxTe and Zn1−xCrxTe

We have investigated the magnetic properties of single‐crystal Cd1−xCrxTe and Zn1−xCrxTe samples. The magnetization is anisotropic (∼7% for Zn1−xCrxTe and ∼0.4% for Cd1−xCrxTe) with the (111) direction having the greatest value. We have found that the magnetic behavior in fields up to 6 T and temperatures between 1.5 and 324 K for both systems is well described by a theoretical model with crystal field, Jahn–Teller, spin‐orbit, and spin‐spin terms including ligand field corrections to the spin‐orbit and spin‐spin parameters. Good agreement was found between the experimental results and the theoretical calculations for a Jahn–Teller splitting of 370 and 320 cm−1 and effective spin‐orbit parameters of −49.9 and −59.4 cm−1 for Cd1−xCrxTe and Zn1−xCrxTe, respectively. The key feature is an orbital singlet, S=2 ground state with a small splitting (1.5 K for Cd1−xCrxTe and 12.4 K for Zn1−xCrxTe) of the ms states.