The fitting of several magnetic anisotropy constants to measured torque curves with an application to nickel

Abstract

If several constants are fitted to measured data, an unduly increase of the probable error in these constants can be avoided by defining them as coefficients of orthogonal functions. This is applied to measurements of magnetic anisotropy of cubic crystals; it is shown that if more than 4 constants are neede, the conventional anisotropy constants (the coefficients of symmetrical polynomials) are not suitable to represent the experimental data. A better solution can be obtained when linear combinations are used, that are adapted to experimental circumstances (in this case the crystallographic planes in which the anisotropy torques were measured).