First principles calculations of the structural, electronic, magnetic, and thermodynamic properties of the Nd2MgGe2 and Gd2MgGe2 intermetallic compounds.

In recent years the intermetallic ternary RE2MgGe2 (RE = rare earth) compounds attract interest in a variety of technological areas. We therefore investigate in the present work the structural, electronic, magnetic, and thermodynamic properties of Nd2MgGe2 and Gd2MgGe2. Spin-orbit coupling is found to play an essential role in realizing the antiferromagnetic ground state observed in experiments. Both materials show metallicity and application of a Debye-Slater model demonstrates low thermal conductivity and little effects of the RE atom on the thermodynamic behavior.