Thermal properties of ferromagnetic clusters

Abstract

The magnetic moments and heat capacities of small iron, cobalt and nickel clusters in a molecular beam have been measured as a function of their size and temperature. The magnetic moment of nickel and cobalt clusters decreases with increasing size and with increasing temperature, slowly converging to the bulk magnetization curve as the cluster size increases. Heat capacity measurement of the clusters in the beam reveals that the magnetic contribution to the heat capacity is well approximated using mean field concepts, combined with measured magnetic properties. In contrast, iron clusters show anomalies, both in the magnetic moments as well as in the heat capacities. We speculate that these effects reflect a sensitivity of the magnetic order on structure as in bulk iron.