Nonlinear characteristic emissions of K alpha, K beta and gamma with a significant triplet splitting at room temperature are observed from the long-lived nuclear state of 103mRh excited by bremsstrahlung irradiation. A pronounced phase-transition-lik
e narrowing of the emission profiles occurs immediately after the sample is cooled down to 77 K. The room temperature profiles reappear again abruptly and almost reversibly as the temperature drifts freely back to approximately the ice point after the filling of liquid nitrogen is stopped. These emission properties at 300 K and at low temperature may indicate that the 103mRh nuclei are in collective states.
Fine powders of micron- and submicron-sized particles of undoped Cu2O semiconductor, with three different sizes and morphologies have been synthesized by different chemical processes. These samples include nanospheres 200 nm in diameter, octahedra of
size 1 micron, and polyhedra of size 800 nm. They exhibit a wide spectrum of magnetic properties. At low temperature, T = 5 K, the octahedron sample is diamagnetic. The nanosphere is paramagnetic. The other two polyhedron samples synthesized in different runs by the same process are found to show different magnetic properties. One of them exhibits weak ferromagnetism with T_C = 455 K and saturation magnetization, M_S = 0.19 emu/g at T = 5 K, while the other is paramagnetic. The total magnetic moment estimated from the detected impurity concentration of Fe, Co, and Ni, is too small to account for the observed magnetism by one to two orders of magnitude. Calculations by the density functional theory (DFT) reveal that cation vacancies in the Cu2O lattice are one of the possible causes of induced magnetic moments. The results further predict that the defect-induced magnetic moments favour a ferromagnetically coupled ground state if the local concentration of cation vacancies, n_C, exceeds 12.5%. This offers a possible scenario to explain the observed magnetic properties. The limitations of the investigations in the present work, in particular in the theoretical calculations, are discussed and possible areas for further study are suggested.
Finite size effect on the antiferromagnetic transition temperature, TN, of Co3O4 nanoparticles of 75, 35, and 16 nm in diameter, has been investigated. The AFM transition point, TN, reduces with the decreasing diameter, d. Along with the results from
the previous experiments on the Co3O4 nanoparticles of 8 and 4.3 nm, the variation of TN with d appears to follow the finite size relation. According to the scaling behavior, the shift exponent is determined as lambda = 1.4 pm 0.4, the correlation length, ksi_0 = 3.0 pm 0.3 nm, and the bulk Neel temperature, TN(infint) = 38.6 pm 0.7 K.
The magnetic properties of the one dimensional (1D) monatomic chain of Co reported in a previous experimental work are investigated by a classical Monte Carlo simulation based on the anisotropic Heisenberg model. In our simulation, the effect of the
on-site uniaxial anisotropy, Ku, on each individual Co atom and the nearest neighbour exchange interaction, J, are accounted for. The normalized coercivity HC(T)/HC(TCL) is found to show a universal behaviour, HC(T)/HC(TCL) = h0(e^{TB/T}-e) in the temperature interval, TCL < T < TBCal, arising from the thermal activation effect. In the above expression, h0 is a constant, TBCal is the blocking temperature determined by the calculation, and TCL is the temperature above which the classical Monte Carlo simulation gives a good description on the investigated system. The present simulation has reproduced the experimental features, including the temperature dependent coercivity, HC(T), and the angular dependence of the remanent magnetization, MR(phi,theta), upon the relative orientation (phi,theta) of the applied field H. In addition, the calculation reveals that the ferromagnetic-like open hysteresis loop is a result of a slow dynamical process at T < TBCal. The dependence of the dynamical TBCal on the field sweeping rate R, the on-site anisotropy constant Ku, and the number of atoms in the atomic chain, N, has been investigated in detail.
Magnetic properties with chains of hcp Co hollow spheres have been studied. The diameter of the spheres ranges from 500 to 800 nm, with a typical shell thickness of about 60 nm. The shell is polycrystalline with an average crystallite size of 20 to 3
5 nm. The blocking temperature determined by the zero-field-cooling MZFC(T) measurement at H = 90 Oe is about 325 K. The corresponding effective anisotropy is determined as, Keff = 4.6*10^4 J/m^3. In addition, the blocking temperature and the effective anisotropy determined by the analysis on HC(T) are 395 K and 5.7*10^4 J/m^3, respectively. The experimentally determined anisotropy is smaller by one order of magnitude than the magnetocrystalline anisotropy of the bulk hcp Co, which is about 3 to 5*10^5 J/m^3. A further analysis on HC(T) shows that the magnetization reversal follows a nucleation rotational mode with an effective switching volume, V* = 2.3*10^3 nm^3. The corresponding effective diameter is calculated as 16.4 nm. It is slightly larger than the coherence length of Co, about 15 nm. The possible reason for the much reduced magnetic anisotropy is discussed briefly.
