Spin dynamics of layered triangular antiferromagnets with uniaxial anisotropy

The spin dynamics of the semiclassical Heisenberg model with uniaxial anisotropy, on the layered triangular lattice with antiferromagnetic coupling for both intralayer nearest neighbor interaction and interlayer interaction is studied both in the ordered phase and in the paramagnetic phase, using the Monte Carlo-molecular dynamics technique. The important quantities calculated are the full dynamic structure function S(q,ω)$S(\mathbf{q},\omega )$, the chiral dynamic structure function _Schi(ω)$S_{\mathrm{chi}}(\omega )$, the static order parameter and some thermodynamic quantities. Our results show the existence of propagating modes corresponding to both S(q,ω)$S(\mathbf{q},\omega )$ and _Schi(ω)$S_{\mathrm{chi}}(\omega )$ in the ordered phase, supporting the recent conjectures. Our results for the static properties show the magnetic ordering in each layer to be of coplanar 3-sublattice type deviating from 120^°${120}^{°}$ structure. In the presence of magnetic trimerization, however, we find the 3-sublattice structure to be weakened along with the tendency towards non-coplanarity of the spins, supporting the experimental conjecture. Our results for the spin dynamics are in qualitative agreement with those from the inelastic neutron scattering experiments performed recently.     

Fitting the flow curve of a plastically deformed silicon steel for the prediction of magnetic properties

We report measurements and modelling of magnetic effects due to plastic deformation in 2.2% Si steel, emphasizing new tensile deformation data. The modelling approach is to take the Ludwik law for the strain-hardening stress and use it to compute the dislocation density, which is then used in the computation of magnetic hysteresis. A nonlinear extrapolation is used across the discontinuous yield region to obtain the value of stress at the yield point that is used in fitting Ludwik's law to the mechanical data. The computed magnetic hysteresis exhibits sharp shearing of the loops at small deformation, in agreement with experimental behavior. Magnetic hysteresis loss is shown to follow a Ludwik-like dependence on the residual strain, but with a smaller Ludwik exponent than applies for the mechanical behavior.     

Needle-like domain structure in Co films deposited on Mo (1 1 0)

Magnetization reversal processes and domain structures have been studied in Mo(1 1 0)/Co(0 0 0 1)/Au(1 1 1) structures grown by molecular beam epitaxy on monocrystalline (11–20) sapphire substrates. Wedge-shaped samples with different Co thickness gradients relative to the Mo [0 0 1] direction were fabricated. Observation of the domain structure was performed at room temperature using Kerr microscopy in a Co thickness range varying from 5 to 50 nm, where the magnetization is oriented in the plane of the sample. A Co thickness-dependent coercivity field was determined through analysis of the domain wall position during the reversal process. A preferential orientation of magnetic domain walls was found, with the domains being needle-like. The orientation, as well as the size of the needles, depends on the Co thickness and the orientation of the magnetic field applied in the sample plane.     

Study of magnetoelectric coupling effect in the hexagonal ferroelectromagnet

Soft-mode theory based on Diffour model for ferroelectric subsystem, and mean-field theory as well as Heisenberg model for antiferromagnetic subsystem are utilized to investigate the magnetoelectric coupling effect in a hexagonal ferroelectromagnet, in which the ferroelectric and antiferromagnetic orders spontaneously coexist below a certain temperature. An anomaly of polarization at the magnetic transition temperature is ascribed to the effect of magnetoelectric coupling. The magnetic excitation has also been studied by spin-wave theory over the three-sublattice model. It is demonstrated that role of magnetoelectric coupling effect is not only related with the strength of magnetoelectric coupling but also special spin lattice structure. Our results show the magnetic specific heat induced by magnetic excitation experiences a suppression by the magnetoelectric coupling.     

Anisotropy and magnetization process in soft magnets: Principles,experiments, applications

Understanding and controlling the anisotropy energy and its effects has proved vital to the development of soft magnetic materials and their applications. Indeed, acting on composition and structure and working out specific annealing treatments, a large variety of anisotropy-governed behaviors under DC and AC excitation can be obtained. These are discussed in the present paper, together with special problems arising in the characterization of anisotropic soft magnets and a few significant applications. It is stressed how features like J$J$–H$H$ loop shape, energy losses, and magnetoresistance effects can be controlled, in crystalline and amorphous materials, by the methods of induced anisotropy. The high-frequency behavior of these materials can be strongly affected by the anisotropy field via resonant absorption of energy. This calls for tradeoff between the values of permeability and resonance frequency.     

Explicit solutions to phenomenological models of magnetization reversal of thin ferromagnetic films in the presence of a sawtooth magnetic field

Explicit solutions are derived for several phenomenological models of magnetization reversal in thin ferromagnetic films driven by a sawtooth magnetic field. For a domain wall velocity that is linear in the magnetic field, it is found that the dynamic coercive field follows a square-root power-law in the slope of the magnetic field, shifted by the depinning field. For a more general domain wall velocity different power-law exponents are found, yet the overall form for the scaling of the area of the hysteresis loop remains a power-law shifted by the depinning field. This shifted power-law could be interpreted to be a crossover between adiabatic and dynamic regimes.     

Magnetic properties of DyNi<Subscript>2</Subscript>B<Subscript>2</Subscript>C studied with a two-ion model for antiferromagnets

In a rare-earth antiferromagnet, two neighboring magnetic ions order spontaneously in opposite directions below the Néel temperature. Especially when it is placed in an external magnetic field, the two magnetic ions react to the field in different ways, so that they usually have different magnitudes and orientations below the magnetic transition temperature. Therefore, to describe the magnetic structure of an antiferromagnet, the single-ion ferromagnetic-like model is inadequate. To solve this problem, a two-ion model for rare-earth antiferromagnets is proposed and used in this work to investigate the magnetic properties of DyNi₂B₂C. The magnetic susceptibility curves obtained with this model show good agreements with experimental data.     

Room-temperature ferromagnetic Mn-alloyed ZnO films obtained by pulsed laser deposition

Ferromagnetic, semi-insulating Mn-alloyed ZnO films with a Curie temperature above 375 K have been grown by pulsed laser deposition on c-plane sapphire substrates. Antiferromagnetic coupling is revealed by temperature-dependent magnetization measurements. The antiferromagnetic coupling would be compatible with the observed weak ferromagnetism by assuming that the magnetic moments order antiferromagnetically but nonparallel (canted). We find a clear correlation between coercivity and mosaicity of the ferromagnetic Mn-alloyed ZnO films and explain it on the basis of a coercivity mechanism known from soft magnetic materials.     

Connection between microstructure and magnetic properties of soft magnetic materials

The magnetic behavior of soft magnetic materials is discussed with some emphasis on the connection between macroscopic properties and underlying micromagnetic energy aspects. It is shown that important conceptual gaps still exist in the interpretation of macroscopic magnetic properties in terms of the micromagnetic formulation. Different aspects of hysteresis modeling, power loss prediction and magnetic non-destructive evaluation are discussed in this perspective.     

Magnetic phase diagram of the dimerized spin S = 1/2 ladder

The ground-state magnetic phase diagram of a spin S=1/2 two-leg ladder with alternating rung exchange J_⊥(n)=J_⊥[1 + (-1)ⁿ δ] is studied using the analytical and numerical approaches. In the limit where the rung exchange is dominant, we have mapped the model onto the effective quantum sine-Gordon model with topological term and identified two quantum phase transitions at magnetization equal to the half of saturation value from a gapped to the gapless regime. These quantum transitions belong to the universality class of the commensurate-incommensurate phase transition. We have also shown that the magnetization curve of the system exhibits a plateau at magnetization equal to the half of the saturation value. We also present a detailed numerical analysis of the low energy excitation spectrum and the ground state magnetic phase diagram of the ladder with rung-exchange alternation using Lanczos method of numerical diagonalizations for ladders with number of sites up to N = 28. We have calculated numerically the magnetic field dependence of the low-energy excitation spectrum, magnetization and the on-rung spin-spin correlation function. We have also calculated the width of the magnetization plateau and show that it scales as δ^ν, where critical exponent varies from ν = 0.87±0.01 in the case of a ladder with isotropic antiferromagnetic legs to ν = 1.82±0.01 in the case of ladder with ferromagnetic legs. Obtained numerical results are in an complete agreement with estimations made within the continuum-limit approach.     

The phase diagram of a ferrimagnetic multilayer system with disordered interface layers

The critical and compensation behaviors of a ferrimagnetic multilayer system on a simple cubic structure consisting of L layer of spin-1/2 A atoms, L   layers of spin-1 B atoms and a disordered interface with two layers in between that is characterized by a random arrangement of A and B atoms of _APB1-P${\mathrm{A}}_P{\mathrm{B}}_{1-P}$ type in the first layer and _A1-PBP${\mathrm{A}}_{1-P}{\mathrm{B}}_P$ type in the second layer and a negative A–B coupling, are examined using the effective field theory based on a probability distribution technique. The effect of the probability p$p$, interactions, different anisotropy and the thickness L on the magnetic properties is examined. The obtained results show a number of characteristic features, such as the possibility of many compensation points.     

Measurements of magnetostriction of paramagnetic Fe–Mo–Cu–B metallic glasses

Magnetostriction of amorphous Fe₇₉Mo₈Cu₁B₁₂, (Fe₁₂Co₁)₇₉Mo₈Cu₁B₁₂ and (Fe₉Co₁)₇₉Mo₈Cu₁B₁₂ prepared by planar flow casting was measured using a direct method. The results indicate that magnetostriction in parallel (_λ∥)$({\lambda }_{\parallel })$ and perpendicular (_λ⊥)$({\lambda }_{\perp })$ directions of applied magnetic field is linearly dependent on magnetic field. In order to determine the influences of chemical composition and the conditions of sample preparation the magnetostriction of pure BCC-Fe, Cu and Mo were also measured. Samples containing Co with Curie temperatures slightly above room temperatures were shown to exhibit a hybrid magnetostriction behaviour with both ferromagnetic and paramagnetic features.     

Multicritical behaviors of the antiferromagnetic Blume–Emery–Griffiths model with the external magnetic field on the Bethe lattice

The antiferromagnetic Blume–Emery–Griffiths model in an external magnetic field is studied by using the exact recursion relations on the Bethe lattice for arbitrary values of biquadratic and for negative values of bilinear interactions. We have studied the thermal variations of two-sublattice magnetizations belonging to spin-1 BEG model to obtain the phase diagrams on the (H/|J|,kT/|J|)$(H/|J|,\mathit{kT}/|J|)$ plane. As a result, we have found that the system presents second- and first-order phase transitions, therefore, tricritical points for appropriate values of K/|J|$K/\left|J\right|$, D/|J|$D/\left|J\right|$ and q  . We have also found that the second-order phase transition lines exhibit reentrant phenomena in temperature, besides it also shows reentrant phenomena for the first-order phase lines in external magnetic field for q=4$q=4$ and 6.     

Cosmology with inhomogeneous magnetic fields

We review spacetime dynamics in the presence of large-scale electromagnetic fields and then consider the effects of the magnetic component on perturbations to a spatially homogeneous and isotropic universe. Using covariant techniques, we refine and extend earlier work and provide the magnetohydrodynamic equations that describe inhomogeneous magnetic cosmologies in full general relativity. Specialising this system to perturbed Friedmann–Robertson–Walker models, we examine the effects of the field on the expansion dynamics and on the growth of density inhomogeneities, including non-adiabatic modes. We look at scalar perturbations and obtain analytic solutions for their linear evolution in the radiation, dust and inflationary eras. In the dust case we also calculate the magnetic analogue of the Jeans length. We then consider the evolution of vector perturbations and find that the magnetic presence generally reduces the decay rate of these distortions. Finally, we examine the implications of magnetic fields for the evolution of cosmological gravitational waves.     

Ferrimagnetic properties of Co/(Gd–Co) multilayers

Co/(Gd–Co) multilayers have been prepared by rf-sputtering and investigated by means of Transverse Magnetooptic Kerr Effect (TMOKE), SQUID and VSM magnetometry. The composition of amorphous _Gd0.36Co0.64${\mathrm{Gd}}_{0.36}{\mathrm{Co}}_{0.64}$ layers was chosen so that their saturation magnetization was dominated by Gd moments in all the temperature range. Co and Gd–Co layers formed a macroscopic ferrimagnetically coupled system displaying a compensation temperature. Complete magnetic moment compensation was found at such point. An inversion of TMOKE hysteresis loops and a divergent behaviour of coercivity were also observed. By changing the layers thickness it has been possible to control the magnetic characteristics of the Co/(Gd–Co) structures, in particular the compensation takes place at different temperatures.     

Peculiar magnetic aftereffect of highly diluted frozen magnetic fluids

A very stably dispersed magnetic fluid (mother MF) and its 1000-times diluted solution were independently zero-field-cooled from room temperature to 5 K followed by application of a magnetic field of 2.86 MA/m for 300 s. After the field was removed (t=0)$(t=0)$, its residual magnetization M was measured as a function of time t for 80 000 s. After measurement, the MF sample was heated to room temperature, and the experiment was repeated after cooling to 5 K and again applying and removing the 2.86 MA/m field. We performed the same experiment several times, and obtained a different M vs t curve each time. With each cycle, the average M increased and the M vs t curve converged to a universal curve. In the initial few cycles, the value of M is very small, fluctuates and surprisingly increases with t in some time region. These characteristics are common in both the mother MF and diluted MF. We consequently propose the following physical model. When the MF is cooled, the isolated surfactant molecules in the solvent trigger the generation of magnetic colloid micelles. In other words, there occurs a phase transition from the magnetic colloids’ monodispersed phase to a micelle phase. The magnetic dipoles of the micelle's colloids make a closed magnetic flux loop. That is the origin of the anomalously small value of the residual magnetization in the early cycles. After a certain time elapses the micelles spontaneously break due to their residual stress, and a finite magnetic moment of the individual micelle develops. Consequently, M increases with t during this period.     

Coverage-dependent spin reorientation transition temperature of the Fe double-layer on W(1 1 0) observed by scanning tunneling microscopy

The magnetic domain structure of the Fe double-layer on W(1 1 0) is investigated using a variable-temperature scanning tunneling microscope. At low temperature the well-known periodic magnetic stripe domain structure is identified via the observation of domain walls. This is done with a non-spin-polarized tip by taking advantage of a spin–orbit coupling effect. At higher temperature a reorientation to an in-plane easy axis is observed. The spin reorientation temperature is found to be coverage-dependent and it is determined for samples with a coverage of 1.5–2.2 atomic layers of Fe on W(1 1 0).     

The phenomenology of Dvali–Gabadadze–Porrati cosmologies

Cosmologists today are confronted with the perplexing reality that the universe is currently accelerating in its expansion. Nevertheless, the nature of the fuel that drives today's cosmic acceleration is an open and tantalizing mystery. There exists the intriguing possibility that the acceleration is not the manifestation of yet another mysterious ingredient in the cosmic gas tank (dark energy), but rather our first real lack of understanding of gravity itself, and even possibly a signal that there might exist dimensions beyond that which we can currently observe. The braneworld model of Dvali, Gabadadze and Porrati (DGP) is a theory where gravity is altered at immense distances by the excruciatingly slow leakage of gravity off our three-dimensional Universe and, as a modified-gravity theory, has pioneered this line of investigation. I review the underlying structure of DGP gravity and those phenomenological developments relevant to cosmologists interested in a pedagogical treatment of this intriguing model.