Sigma-phase intermetallic compound of Fe54Cr46 was investigated using DC and AC magnetic susceptibility techniques. A clear-cut evidence was found that the sample orders magnetically at Tc=23.5 K and its ground magnetic state is constituted by a spin glass. The temperature at which the zero-field cooled magnetization has its maximum decreases with an external magnetic field in line with the Gabay-Toulouse prediction. The temperature at which the AC magnetic susceptibility has its maximum does not depend on frequency which, in the light of the mean-field theory, testifies to very long magnetic interactions.
We present a comprehensive and systematic magnetization and ac susceptibility study of Mn$_{1-x}$Fe$_{x}$Si over an extensive range of ten Fe concentrations between $x$ = 0 - 0.32. With increasing Fe substitution, the critical temperature decreases but the magnetic phase diagrams remain qualitatively unaltered for $x$ $leq$ $x^*$ $approx$ 0.11 with clear boundaries between the helical, conical, and skyrmion lattice phase as well as an enhanced precursor phase. A notably different behavior sets in for $x$ $=$ 0.11, 0.13 and 0.14, where certain characteristics of helimagnetic correlations persist, but without clear phase boundaries. Although a qualitative change already sets in at $x^*$, the transition temperature and spontaneous magnetization vanish only at $x_C$ = 0.17 where also the average magnetic interactions change sign. Although the Curie-Weiss temperature reaches -12~K for $x$ = 0.32, no signature of long-range magnetic order is found down to the lowest temperature, indicating a possible significant role for quantum fluctuations in these systems.
We report the results of measurements of the dc magnetic susceptibility chi(T) and of the 23Na nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) response of NaVGe2O6, a material in which the V ions form a network of interacting one-dimensional spin S=1 chains. The experiments were made at temperatures between 2.5 and 300 K. The chi(T) data suggest that the formation of the expected low-temperature Haldane phase is intercepted by an antiferromagnetic phase transition at 18 K. The transition is also reflected in the 23Na NMR spectra and the corresponding spin-lattice relaxation rate 1/T1(T). In the ordered phase, 1/T1(T) decreases by orders of magnitude with decreasing temperature, indicating the formation of a gap of the order of 12 K in the magnetic excitation spectrum.
X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Mossbauer spectroscopy techniques combined with theoretical calculations based on the Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker (KKR) electronic structure calculation method were used to investigate sigma-phase Fe_{100-x}Re_{x} alloys (x = 43, 45, 47, 49 and 53). Structural data such as site occupancies and lattice constants were derived from the XRD patters, while the average isomer shift and distribution curves of the quadrupole splitting were obtained from the Mossbauer spectra. Fe-site charge-densities and the quadrupole splittings were computed with the KKR method for each lattice site. The calculated quantities combined with the experimentally determined site occupancies were successfully used to decompose the measured Mossbauer spectra into five components corresponding to the five sublattices.
Magnetic properties of a sigma-phase Fe60V40 intermetallic compound were studied by means of ac and dc magnetic susceptibility and magnetocaloric effect measurements. The compound is a soft magnet yet it was found to behave like a re-entrant spin-glass system. The magnetic ordering temperature was found to be T_C ca.170 K, while the spin-freezing temperature was ca.164 K. Its relative shift per decade of ac frequency was 0.002, a value smaller than that typical of canonical spin-glasses. Magnetic entropy change, DeltaS, in the vicinity of T_C was determined for magnetic field, H, ranging between 5 and 50 kOe. Analysis of DeltaS in terms of the power law yielded the critical exponent, n, vs. temperature with the minimum value of 0.75 at T_C, while from the analysis of a relative shift of the maximum value of DeltaS with the field a critical exponent Delta=1.7 was obtained. Based on scaling laws relationships values of other two exponents viz. betha=0.6 and gamma=1 were determined.
The bio-inertness of titanium and its alloys attracts their use as bone implants. However a bioactive coating is usually necessary for improving the bone bonding of such implants. In this study, electrophoretic deposition(EPD) of hydroxyapatite (HA) powder on titanium plate was performed using butanol as solvent under direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC) fields. The zeta potential of the suspensions was measured to understand their stability and the charge on the particles. Coating thickness was varied by adjusting the voltage and time of deposition. Surface morphology and cross section thickness were studied using scanning electron microscopy and image analysis software. Surface crack density was calculated from the micrographs. The results showed that the samples of similar thickness have higher grain density when coated using AC as compared to DC EPD. This facile but novel test proves the capability of AC-EPD to attain denser and uniform HA coatings from non-aqueous medium.