Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Solid State Communications journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ssc Communication Magnetic properties study of the anti-perovskite Mn 3 CuN compound by Monte Carlo simulations R. Khalladi a,** , H. Labrim c , S. Idrissi a , S. Mtougui a , I. El Housni a , S. Ziti b , N. El Mekkaoui a , L. Bahmad a,* a Laboratoire de la Matière Condensée et des Sciences Interdisciplinaires (LaMCScI), Mohammed V University of Rabat, Faculty of Sciences, B.P. 1014 Rabat, Morocco b Intelligent Processing and Security Systems, Mohammed V University of Rabat, Faculty of Sciences, B.P. 1014 Rabat, Morocco c USM/DERS/Centre National de l’Energie, des Sciences et des Techniques Nucléaires (CNESTEN), Rabat, Morocco ARTICLE INFO Communicated by S. Miyashita Keywords: Anti-perovskite Metallic compound Mn 3 CuN Monte Carlo simulations Hysteresis loops ABSTRACT In this paper, we investigated the magnetic properties of the cubic anti-perovskite Mn 3 CuN compound by ap- plying the Monte Carlo simulation (MCs). The magnetism in this metallic Mn 3 CuN is provided by the Mn atoms (Mn 4+ )having the magnetic moment S = 1 and Cu (Cu 2+ ) atoms described by the magnetic spin momentσ = 1/ 2. However, we presented and discussed the ground state phase diagrams where we observed the stable phases in different planes corresponding to different physical parameters of the system at zero absolute temperature T = 0 K. On the other hand, a model describing the system is proposed to solve the Hamiltonian governing the system. The results of the physical parameters such as the susceptibilities, magnetizations and the specific heat behaviors are deduced for the finite size, as a function of temperature. Moreover, the thermal behavior of the previous physical quantities with the variation of the exchange coupling interactions, the crystal field and the external magnetic field are presented and discussed. Also, the curves of the magnetizations as a function of the crystal field are plotted. Finally, the magnetic hysteresis loops of the studied system have been drawn. 1. Introduction Over the recent decades, the perovskites have been a huge interest by physicists and chemists researchers because of their several prop- erties such as dielectric, optical, magnetic and many other properties which make these materials very useful in different technological ap- plications where they are applied in laser, memory cells, electro-optics capacity [1,2], sensors, high-voltage capacitors, high-power application [3,4] and spintronics [5,6]. Generally, the perovskite compound have the formula ABO 3 , where A denotes a low charge cation such as rare earths, alkaline earth metals or alkali metals, B is a small cation, usually a transition metal [7]. However, a similar structure is dedicated to the antiperovskite materials which have the general formula A 3 BX (A: metallic elements such as Fe, Ni, Mn; B: is a main group (III-V) element, Ge, Ga, Cu, Sn, Pb.; X: N, C, and B) [8,9]. These materials have also very interesting physical properties like magnetostriction [10], giant mag- netoresistance (GMR) [11–13], superconductivity [14,15], nearly zero temperature coefficient of resistivity [16,17], strong electron-electron correlation [18], giant negative thermal expansion [19–21], magneto- caloric effect (MCE) derived from the strong correlation between lattice, spin and charge [22,23] and giant magnetoresistance [24–26] also the mechanical side characterizes these materials [27,28] all that make of them very powerful materials in several new devices. Many studies have investigated these compounds among theme including S. Iqbal et al., they reported theoretically the electronic and optical properties of the Ca-based antiperovskite Ca 3 MN using the density functional theory [29]. While Chern and Disalvo investigated the same family experimentally by both the neutron powder diffraction and the X-ray powder [30]. Other studies choose to investigate the Fe-based family where they examined their physical properties [31–35]. Also the Mn-based and the Ni-based antiperovskites have been the field of interest of many researchers [36–49]. The first family which has the formula Mn 3 BX crystallizes in the cubic structure with the space group Pm3m and lattice parameters a = b = c = 3.829 A, where the B atoms are located in the summits of the cube while the ‘X’ atoms take the center of the cube at (1/2, 1/2, 1/2) and the ‘Mn’ atoms have three positions Mn1 (0.5,0, 0), Mn2 (0,0.5,0) and Mn3 (0,0,0.5) [50]. Mn3CuN belonging to them have been reported in several scientific paper because of their interesting properties. A large magnetostriction has been discovered by Asano et al. [51] for the compound CuNMn3 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssc.2018.12.018 Received 10 September 2018; Received in revised form 2 November 2018; Accepted 27 December 2018 * Corresponding author. ** Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: khalladirajaa17@gmail.com (R. Khalladi), bahmad@fsr.ac.ma, Lahou2002@gmail.com (L. Bahmad). Solid State Communications 290 (2019) 42–48 Available online 28 December 2018 0038-1098/ © 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd. T