Solid solutions of the rare-earth nitrides ($L{n}_{x}L{n}_{1-x}^{\prime }\mathrm{N}$, where $\mathit{Ln}, \mathit{Ln}{}^{\prime }$ are lanthanides) allow material control of the rich spin- and orbital-magnetism of the rare earths. This includes the engineering of compensation points of the net magnetic moment or net angular momentum in fully spin-aligned phases by leveraging the strong orbital contribution to the net moment. In this study, magnetometry shows that the compensated magnetic state in ${\mathrm{Dy}}_x{\mathrm{Nd}}_{1-x}\mathrm{N}$ does not form a magnetically hard material, as one might expect, and as seen in previous studies of Gd- and Sm-based solutions. Instead, we show using XMCD that the moments on the Dy and Nd ions are delicately balanced and the compensation is easily upset by an applied field.

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• Ferromagnetism
• Magnetic semiconductors
• Rare-earth magnetic materials
• Solid solutions
• Magnetization measurements
• X-ray magnetic circular dichroism