66 research outputs found
Excess Spin and the Dynamics of Antiferromagnetic Ferritin
Temperature-dependent magnetization measurements on a series of synthetic
ferritin proteins containing from 100 to 3000 Fe(III) ions are used to
determine the uncompensated moment of these antiferromagnetic particles. The
results are compared with recent theories of macroscopic quantum coherence
which explicitly include the effect of this excess moment. The scaling of the
excess moment with protein size is consistent with a simple model of finite
size effects and sublattice noncompensation.Comment: 4 pages, 3 Postsript figures, 1 table. Submitted to PR
Quantum Coherence Oscillations in Antiferromagnetic Chains
Macroscopic quantum coherence oscillations in mesoscopic antiferromagnets may
appear when the anisotropy potential creates a barrier between the
antiferromagnetic states with opposite orientations of the Neel vector. This
phenomenon is studied for the physical situation of the nuclear spin system of
eight Xe atoms arranged on a magnetic surface along a chain. The oscillation
period is calculated as a function of the chain constant. The environmental
decoherence effects at finite temperature are accounted assuming a dipole
coupling between the spin chain and the fluctuating magnetic field of the
surface. The numerical calculations indicate that the oscillations are damped
by a rate , where is the number of spins and is
the relaxation time of a single spin.Comment: 10 pages, Latex, two postscript figures; submitted to Phys. Rev.
Relaxation and Landau-Zener experiments down to 100 mK in ferritin
Temperature-independent magnetic viscosity in ferritin has been observed from
2 K down to 100 mK, proving that quantum tunneling plays the main role in these
particles at low temperature. Magnetic relaxation has also been studied using
the Landau-Zener method making the system crossing zero resonant field at
different rates, alpha=dH/dt, ranging from 10^{-5} to 10^{-3} T/s, and at
different temperatures, from 150 mK up to the blocking temperature. We propose
a new Tln(Delta H_{eff}/tau_0 alpha) scaling law for the Landau-Zener
probability in a system distributed in volumes, where Delta H_{eff} is the
effective width of the zero field resonance.Comment: 13 pages, 4 postscript figure
Magnetic properties in a partially oxidized nanocomposite of Cu-CuCl
Magnetism of a very thin antiferromagnetic (AFM) surface CuO has been
investigated with the partially oxidized nanocomposites of Cu-CuCl, ~ 200 nm.
The samples are characterized by X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron
spectroscopy, X-ray-excited Auger electron spectroscopy, transmission electron
microscope and magnetic measurements. The characterizations indicate that the
composites have a core-shell structure. Before the oxidation, it is
(Cu)core/(CuCl)shell, and after the oxidation,
(Cu)core/(Cu2O+CuCl+minuteCuO)shell. The magnetic measurements have revealed
that a ferromagnetic (FM) like open hysteresis exists at the temperature below
the freezing point, TF. In the high field region, a paramagnetic (PM) response
appears without showing a sign of saturation. Also, the field dependent
magnetization (M-H) measurement is PM-like at T > TF. These interesting
magnetic properties are evident to arise from the AFM CuO on the outer surface.
They are attributed to the uncompensated surface spins of Cu2+ and the effect
of surface random potential. More interestingly, the magnetic susceptibility is
greatly enhanced in the presence of Cl- anions at T < TF, according to the
field-cooled/zero-field-cooled (FC/ZFC) measurements. This further supports the
point that the disorder or frustration effect of the impurity would reduce the
AFM ordering of CuO and increase the level of uncompensated spins.Comment: 8 pages including 7 figures, Nanotechnology In Pres
Weak force detection with superposed coherent states
We investigate the utility of non classical states of simple harmonic
oscillators, particularly a superposition of coherent states, for sensitive
force detection. We find that like squeezed states a superposition of coherent
states allows displacement measurements at the Heisenberg limit. Entangling
many superpositions of coherent states offers a significant advantage over a
single mode superposition states with the same mean photon number.Comment: 6 pages, no figures: New section added on entangled resources.
Changes to discussions and conclusio
Non-monotonic field-dependence of the ZFC magnetization peak in some systems of magnetic nanoparticles
We have performed magnetic measurements on a diluted system of gamma-Fe2O3
nanoparticles (~7nm), and on a ferritin sample. In both cases, the ZFC-peak
presents a non-monotonic field dependence, as has already been reported in some
experiments,and discussed as a possible evidence of resonant tunneling. Within
simple assumptions, we derive expressions for the magnetization obtained in the
usual ZFC, FC, TRM procedures. We point out that the ZFC-peak position is
extremely sensitive to the width of the particle size distribution, and give
some numerical estimates of this effect. We propose to combine the FC
magnetization with a modified TRM measurement, a procedure which allows a more
direct access to the barrier distribution in a field. The typical barrier
values which are obtained with this method show a monotonic decrease for
increasing fields, as expected from the simple effect of anisotropy barrier
lowering, in contrast with the ZFC results. From our measurements on
gamma-Fe2O3 particles, we show that the width of the effective barrier
distribution is slightly increasing with the field, an effect which is
sufficient for causing the observed initial increase of the ZFC-peak
temperatures.Comment: LaTeX file 19 pages, 9 postscript figures. To appear in Phys. Rev. B
(tentative schedule: Dec.97
Oscillation of the tunnel splitting in nanospin systems within the particle mapping formalism
The oscillation of tunnel splitting in the biaxial spin system within
magnetic field along the anisotropy axis is analyzed within the particle
mapping approach, rather than in the (\theta-\phi) spin coherent-state
representation. In our mapping procedure, the spin system is transformed into a
particle moving in the restricted geometry whose wave function subjects
to the boundary condition involving additional phase shift. We obtain the new
topological phase that plays the same role as the Wess-Zumino action in spin
coherent-state representation. Considering the interference of two possible
trajectories, instanton and anti-instanton, we get the identical condition for
the field at which tunneling is quenched, with the previous result within spin
coherent-state representation.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure; Some typographical errors have been correcte
Millikelvin magnetic relaxation measurements of alpha-Fe2O3 antiferromagnetic particles
In this paper we report magnetic relaxation data for antiferromagnetic
alpha-Fe2O3 particles of 5 nm mean diameter in the temperature range 0.1 K to
25 K. The average spin value of these particles S=124 and the uniaxial
anisotropy constant D=1.6x10^-2 K have been estimated from the experimental
values of the blocking temperature and anisotropy field. The observed plateau
in the magnetic viscosity from 3 K down to 100 mK agrees with the occurrence of
spin tunneling from the ground state Sz = S. However, the scaling M vs Tln(nu
t) is broken below 5 K, suggesting the occurrence of tunneling from excited
states below this temperature.Comment: 4 pages (two columns), 4 figure
Proton NMR for Measuring Quantum-Level Crossing in the Magnetic Molecular Ring Fe10
The proton nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate 1/T1 has been measured as a
function of temperature and magnetic field (up to 15 T) in the molecular
magnetic ring Fe10. Striking enhancement of 1/T1 is observed around magnetic
field values corresponding to a crossing between the ground state and the
excited states of the molecule. We propose that this is due to a
cross-relaxation effect between the nuclear Zeeman reservoir and the reservoir
of the Zeeman levels of the molecule. This effect provides a powerful tool to
investigate quantum dynamical phenomena at level crossing.Comment: Four pages, to appear in Phys.Rev.Let
Macroscopic quantum coherence in mesoscopic ferromagnetic systems
In this paper we study the Macroscopic Quantum Oscillation (MQO) effect in
ferromagnetic single domain magnets with a magnetic field applied along the
hard anistropy axis. The level splitting for the ground state, derived with the
conventional instanton method, oscillates with the external field and is
quenched at some field values. A formula for quantum tunneling at excited
levels is also obtained. The existence of topological phase accounts for this
kind of oscillation and the corresponding thermodynamical quantities exhibit
similar interference effects which resembles to some extent the electron
quantum phase interference induced by gauge potential in the Aharonov-Bohm
effect and the -vacuum in Yang-Mills field theory..Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.
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