Monte Carlo Simulation of Specific Heat of Alumel Alloy

Among magnetic alloys, Alumel (95%Ni-2%Mn-2%Al-1%Si) has been widely used due to its technological applications. We fit the specific heat, at zero magnetic field, of this alloy by the Blume-Capel model for spin σ = 1 on a two and three-dimensional cubic lattice, using Monte Carlo simulation. The best results obtained on a square lattice (linear dimension L = 512 and 1000 Monte Carlo steps per spin) show good concordance between the model and experimental data. We assume that the competition between ferromagnetic (Ni, Mn) sites is strong on planes, and between them is weak due to the presence of nonmagnetic ions (Al or Si).