775 research outputs found
Tailoring Fe/Ag Superparamagnetic Composites by Multilayer Deposition
The magnetic properties of Fe/Ag granular multilayers were examined by SQUID
magnetization and Mossbauer spectroscopy measurements. Very thin (0.2 nm)
discontinuous Fe layers show superparamagnetic properties that can be tailored
by the thickness of both the magnetic and the spacer layers. The role of
magnetic interactions was studied in novel heterostructures of
superparamagnetic and ferromagnetic layers and the specific contribution of the
ferromagnetic layers to the low field magnetic susceptibility was identified.Comment: 5 pages and 3 figure
Magnetic relaxation in finite two-dimensional nanoparticle ensembles
We study the slow phase of thermally activated magnetic relaxation in finite
two-dimensional ensembles of dipolar interacting ferromagnetic nanoparticles
whose easy axes of magnetization are perpendicular to the distribution plane.
We develop a method to numerically simulate the magnetic relaxation for the
case that the smallest heights of the potential barriers between the
equilibrium directions of the nanoparticle magnetic moments are much larger
than the thermal energy. Within this framework, we analyze in detail the role
that the correlations of the nanoparticle magnetic moments and the finite size
of the nanoparticle ensemble play in magnetic relaxation.Comment: 21 pages, 4 figure
Aging in a topological spin glass
We have examined the nonconventional spin glass phase of the 2-dimensional
kagome antiferromagnet (H_3 O) Fe_3 (SO_4)_2 (OH)_6 by means of ac and dc
magnetic measurements. The frequency dependence of the ac susceptibility peak
is characteristic of a critical slowing down at Tg ~ 18K. At fixed temperature
below Tg, aging effects are found which obey the same scaling law as in spin
glasses or polymers. However, in clear contrast with conventional spin glasses,
aging is remarkably insensitive to temperature changes. This particular type of
dynamics is discussed in relation with theoretical predictions for highly
frustrated non-disordered systems.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Phase Separation and the Low-Field Bulk Magnetic Properties of Pr0.7Ca0.3MnO3
We present a detailed magnetic study of the perovskite manganite
Pr0.7Ca0.3MnO3 at low temperatures including magnetization and a.c.
susceptibility measurements. The data appear to exclude a conventional spin
glass phase at low fields, suggesting instead the presence of correlated
ferromagnetic clusters embedded in a charge-ordered matrix. We examine the
growth of the ferromagnetic clusters with increasing magnetic field as they
expand to occupy almost the entire sample at H ~ 0.5 T. Since this is well
below the field required to induce a metallic state, our results point to the
existence of a field-induced ferromagnetic insulating state in this material.Comment: 15 pages with figures, submitted to Physical Review
Nanosized superparamagnetic precipitates in cobalt-doped ZnO
The existence of semiconductors exhibiting long-range ferromagnetic ordering
at room temperature still is controversial. One particularly important issue is
the presence of secondary magnetic phases such as clusters, segregations,
etc... These are often tedious to detect, leading to contradictory
interpretations. We show that in our cobalt doped ZnO films grown
homoepitaxially on single crystalline ZnO substrates the magnetism
unambiguously stems from metallic cobalt nano-inclusions. The magnetic behavior
was investigated by SQUID magnetometry, x-ray magnetic circular dichroism, and
AC susceptibility measurements. The results were correlated to a detailed
microstructural analysis based on high resolution x-ray diffraction,
transmission electron microscopy, and electron-spectroscopic imaging. No
evidence for carrier mediated ferromagnetic exchange between diluted cobalt
moments was found. In contrast, the combined data provide clear evidence that
the observed room temperature ferromagnetic-like behavior originates from
nanometer sized superparamagnetic metallic cobalt precipitates.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures; details about background subtraction added to
section III. (XMCD
Magnetic properties of colloidal suspensions of interacting magnetic particles
We review equilibrium thermodynamic properties of systems of magnetic
particles like ferrofluids in which dipolar interactions play an important
role. The review is focussed on two subjects: ({\em i}) the magnetization with
the initial magnetic susceptibility as a special case and ({\em ii}) the phase
transition behavior. Here the condensation ("gas/liquid") transition in the
subsystem of the suspended particles is treated as well as the
isotropic/ferromagnetic transition to a state with spontaneously generated
long--range magnetic order.Comment: Review. 62 pages, 4 figure
Finite-Size and surface effects in maghemite nanoparticles: Monte Carlo simulations
Finite-size and surface effects in fine particle systems are investigated by
Monte Carlo simulation of a model of a -FeO (maghemite) single
particle. Periodic boundary conditions have been used to simulate the bulk
properties and the results compared with those for a spherical shaped particle
with free boundaries to evidence the role played by the surface on the
anomalous magnetic properties displayed by these systems at low temperatures.
Several outcomes of the model are in qualitative agreement with the
experimental findings. A reduction of the magnetic ordering temperature,
spontaneous magnetization, and coercive field is observed as the particle size
is decreased. Moreover, the hysteresis loops become elongated with high values
of the differential susceptibility, resembling those from frustrated or
disordered systems. These facts are consequence of the formation of a surface
layer with higher degree of magnetic disorder than the core, which, for small
sizes, dominates the magnetization processes of the particle. However, in
contradiction with the assumptions of some authors, our model does not predict
the freezing of the surface layer into a spin-glass-like state. The results
indicate that magnetic disorder at the surface simply facilitates the thermal
demagnetization of the particle at zero field, while the magnetization is
increased at moderate fields, since surface disorder diminishes ferrimagnetic
correlations within the particle. The change in shape of the hysteresis loops
with the particle size demonstrates that the reversal mode is strongly
influenced by the reduced atomic coordination and disorder at the surface.Comment: Twocolumn RevTex format. 19 pages, 15 Figures included. Submitted to
Phys. Rev.
Parameter identification problems in the modelling of cell motility
We present a novel parameter identification algorithm for the estimation of parameters in models of cell motility using imaging data of migrating cells. Two alternative formulations of the objective functional that measures the difference between the computed and observed data are proposed and the parameter identification problem is formulated as a minimisation problem of nonlinear least squares type. A LevenbergâMarquardt based optimisation method is applied to the solution of the minimisation problem and the details of the implementation are discussed. A number of numerical experiments are presented which illustrate the robustness of the algorithm to parameter identification in the presence of large deformations and noisy data and parameter identification in three dimensional models of cell motility. An application to experimental data is also presented in which we seek to identify parameters in a model for the monopolar growth of fission yeast cells using experimental imaging data. Our numerical tests allow us to compare the method with the two different formulations of the objective functional and we conclude that the results with both objective functionals seem to agree
The role of the alloy structure in the magnetic behavior of granular systems
The effect of grain size, easy magnetization axis and anisotropy constant
distributions in the irreversible magnetic behavior of granular alloys is
considered. A simulated granular alloy is used to provide a realistic grain
structure for the Monte Carlo simulation of the ZFC-FC curves. The effect of
annealing and external field is also studied. The simulation curves are in good
agreement with the FC and ZFC magnetization curves measured on melt spun Cu-Co
ribbons.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, submitted to PR
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