Some magnetic effects of clustering in iron doped magnesium oxide

Abstract

The growth of a magnesioferrite precipitate in iron doped (˜lOOOOppm wt.) magnesium oxide crystals, heat treated at 973K in oxygen, is studied with torque, magnetisation and magnetic resonance measurements. The torque and magnetisation results are in agreement with a model which assumes that the precipitate grows by diffusion limited Ostwald ripening.The effects of the particle size distribution and cubic magnetocrystalline anisotropy of the orientated octahedral precipitate particles on the magnetisation and torque curves are calculated. A magnetometrie demagnetisation tensor is defined for assemblies of orientated dipoles, its variation with the assembly size is investigated and used to calculate the longitudinal demagnetisation factors of octahedra. The ferromagnetic resonance spectra obtained were not in agreement with the generally used theory of de Biasi and Devezas (J. Appl. Phys. (1978)49, 2466). A new theory, based on a spin Hamiltonian, of the FMR response of an anisotropic superparamagnet is proposed and compared with some of the experimental spectra.