Structural and magnetic properties of YCo4B compound at high pressures

The crystal structure and magnetic properties of YCo4B intermetallic compound were studied by means of neutron diffraction at pressures p ≤ 6.5 GPa. No structural transitions are evidenced. The cobalt moments at 2c and 6i sites decrease, upon lattice compression, with a rate dlnMCo/dp ≅ 0.11 GPa−1, showing a rather high degree of itinerancy. The evolutions with pressure of band structures have been also analysed and the computed cobalt moments are discussed in correlation with those experimentally determined.