Single crystal growth and characterization of 166-type magnetic kagome metals

Kagome magnets were predicted to be a good platform to investigate correlated topology band structure, Chern quantum phase, and geometrical frustration due to their unique lattice geometry. Here we reported single crystal growth of 166-type kagome magnetic materials, including HfMn₆Sn₆, ZrMn₆Sn₆, GdMn₆Sn₆ and GdV₆Sn₆, by using the flux method with Sn as the flux. Among them, HfMn₆Sn₆ and ZrMn₆Sn₆ single crystals were grown for the first time. X-ray diffraction measurements reveal that all four samples crystallize in HfFe₆Ge₆-type hexagonal structure with space group P6/mmm. All samples show metallic behavior from temperature dependence of resistivity measurements, and the dominant carrier is hole, except for GdV₆Sn₆ which is electron dominated. All samples have magnetic order with different transition temperatures, HfMn₆Sn₆, ZrMn₆Sn₆ and GdV₆Sn₆ are antiferromagnetic with T_N of 541 K, 466 K and 4 K respectively, while GdMn₆Sn₆ is ferrimagnetic with the critical temperature of about 470 K. This study will enrich the research platform of magnetic kagome materials and help explore the novel quantum phenomena in these interesting materials. The dataset of specific crystal structure parameters for HfMn₆Sn₆ are available in Science Data Bank, with the link https://doi.org/10.57760/sciencedb.j00113.00120.