Orbital magnetic moment and coercivity of SiO$_{2}$-coated FePt nanoparticles studied by x-ray magnetic circular dichroism


Abstract in English

We have investigated the spin and orbital magnetic moments of Fe in FePt nanoparticles in the $L$1$_{0}$-ordered phase coated with SiO$_{2}$ by x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) measurements at the Fe $L_{rm 2,3}$ absorption edges. Using XMCD sum rules, we evaluated the ratio of the orbital magnetic moment ($M_{rm orb}$) to the spin magnetic moment ($M_{rm spin}$) of Fe to be $M_{rm orb}/M_{rm spin}$ = 0.08. This $M_{rm orb}/M_{rm spin}$ value is comparable to the value (0.09) obtained for FePt nanoparticles prepared by gas phase condensation, and is larger than the values ($sim$0.05) obtained for FePt thin films, indicating a high degree of $L$1$_{0}$ order. The hysteretic behavior of the FePt component of the magnetization was measured by XMCD. The magnetic coercivity ($H_{rm c}$) was found to be as large as 1.8 T at room temperature, $sim$3 times larger than the thin film value and $sim$50 times larger than that of the gas phase condensed nanoparticles. The hysteresis curve is well explained by the Stoner-Wohlfarth model for non-interacting single-domain nanoparticles with the $H_{rm c}$ distributed from 1 T to 5 T.

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