  The polycrystalline form of the compound, Tb5Si3, crystallizing in
Mn5Si3-type hexagonal structure, which was earlier believe to order
antiferromagnetically below 69 K, has been recently reported by us to exhibit
interesting magnetoresistance (MR) anomalies. In order to understand the
magnetic anomalies of this compound better, we synthesized single crystals of
this compound and subjected them to intense magnetization and MR studies. The
results reveal that the magnetic behavior is strongly anisotropic as the easy
axis is along a basal plane. There appear to be multiple magnetic features in
the close vicinity of 70 K. In addition, there are multiple steps in isothermal
magnetization (which could not be resolved in the data for polycrystalline
data) for magnetic-field (H) along a basal plane. The sign of MR is positive in
the magnetically ordered state, and, interestingly, the magnitude dramatically
increases at the initial step for H parallel to basal plane, but decreases at
subsequent steps as though the origin of these steps are different. However,
for the perpendicular orientation (H || [0 0 0 1]), there is no evidence for
any step either in M(H) or in MR(H). These results establish this compound is
an interesting magnetic material.
