Temperature investigations of the spatial spin-modulated structure of multiferroic BiFeO3 by means of Mössbauer spectroscopy

Abstract

The results from 57Fe Mossbauer spectroscopic studies of multiferroic BiFeO3 in a range of tem-peratures including that of the magnetic phase transition are presented. The Mossbauer spectra are processed and analyzed by reconstructing the hyperfine magnetic field distributions and interpreting the spectra with a cycloid-type spatial spin-modulated structure model. The temperature dependences of the hyperfine spectrum parameters (the Mossbauer line shift, the quadrupole shift, and the isotropic and anisotropic contributions to the hyperfine magnetic field) are obtained, along with the anharmonicity parameter of an incommensurate spin wave.