Thermal relaxation, textural and sweep rate effects on reversible transverse susceptibility of magnetic particles

Abstract

We investigated the effect of thermal relaxation on reversible transverse susceptibility (RTS), χ, of single domain Stoner–Wohlfarth particles. We studied such an effect as a function of the orientation β of the easy axis with respect to the drive field (the z axis) within a non-interacting bi-state model. At β=00 one prominent cusp occurs for both χt1 and χt2 along the direction perpendicular to the drive field at H≂HC<HN (nucleation field) at high values KV/kBT (the ratio of the anisotropy energy versus thermal energy). The height of the cusp varies with β and reduces with decreasing values of KV/kBT. Correspondingly, the switching field distribution (SFD) becomes broadened with decreasing values of KV/kBT. The RTS may exhibit one, two, or three prominent cusps at high values of KV/kBT depending upon the textural distribution of the easy axes. For cos2 θ distribution of the easy axis about the x axis, y axis, and z axis there exists two, three, and one cusps, respectively. For random distribution of the easy axis in 2-D in the XZ and YZ plane there are one and three cusps, respectively, while there are three for random distribution in 3-D. Finally, we studied coercivity, RTS and SFD as a function of sweep rate. All these quantities are found to increase with sweeping frequency of the drive field. The peak field value of RTS is consistently the smallest of the three, while that of SFD is equal to or a shade larger than HC depending upon whether the hysteresis loop is rectangular or severely sheared.