The magnetic state of 1212-type ruthenocuprate in magnetocaloric and magnetoresistivity measurements of polycrystalline samples of RuSr2Gd1-xCexCu2O8 and Ru1-xSr2GdCu2O8

The magnetic properties of superconducting Ru1-xSr2GdCu2O8 (x=0, 0.02) and non-superconducting RuSr2Gd1-xCexCu2O8 (x=0.07, 0.1) were investigated by means of magnetocaloric experiments with complementary magnetoresistivity and ac susceptibility measurements. The isothermal magnetocaloric coefficient M_{T}(B) assumes positive values in a broad range of temperatures (20K<T<231 K) and magnetic fields (0<B<13 T), i.e. also in the magnetically ordered state (T_{m}=132 K for RuSr2GdCu2O8 and T_{m}=150 K for RuSr2Gd0.93Ce0.07Cu2O8), which indicates no gain in the system's magnetic entropy with increasing magnetic field. The maximum in the M_{T}(B) dependence was observed for RuSr2GdCu2O8 in a temperature vicinity of T_{m}, which indicates a ferromagnetic character of the accessed magnetic correlations. No spontaneous ferromagnetic order was revealed as the M_{T} assumes limiting zero values at zero magnetic field for the whole range of investigated temperatures. Temperature dependencies of the specific heat reveal the magnetic-field-induced positive temperature shift of the anomaly associated with the magnetic transition in the Ru spin system. The M_{T}(B) dependencies and the magnetoresistivity data suggest that the magnetic system may be inhomogeneous.