par Bart Ludbrook, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
The rare-earth nitrides are an interesting group of materials due to the decoupling of their spin and charge degrees of freedom. They have been the focus of much interest in recent years as advances in band structure calculations produced a range of interesting predictions regarding their magnetic and electronic properties. I will first present an overview of these materials and then look at some of the experimental work we have been doing at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. This will focus on the growth and magnetic properties of GdN and SmN.