Magnetic investigations in liquid Al-In

Measurements of the magnetic susceptibility in liquid alloys of indium with 0-20 at% aluminium are reported. Within the investigated range of temperature and composition all alloys are found to be diamagnetic. The increase of the magnetic susceptibilty due to the addition of aluminium follows a simple linear mixing law. The departures from the free electron behavior are analyzed in terms of the interactions between the electrons and the ion cores and the effect of exchange-correlation between the electrons. The potentials of the cores are indicated to have a very small influence on the electronic part of the susceptibility whereas electronic exchange-correlation yields enhancements of 20% at all compositions. The ambiguity due to the divergent estimates for the contributions of the diamagnetic cores to the total susceptibility is briefly discusssed. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.