B. W. Southern

The effect of surface spin disorder on the magnetism of γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticle dispersions

The nanomagnetism of monodisperse 7 nm γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticles exhibits unique features due to a significant amount of surface spin disorder. To correctly characterize the superparamagnetism of a dilute dispersion requires including the effects of the magnetic anisotropy and a shell of disordered spins surrounding the ordered core. The nanoparticle shells disordered spin structure is exchange coupled to that of the ordered core. This enables an exchange bias loop shift, Hex, when the nanoparticle dispersion is field cooled. The surface spin disorder also leads to an unusual exponential-like decrease of the nanoparticles total saturation magnetization with increasing temperature.

Real space rescaling study of spin glass behaviour in three dimensions

The Edwards and Anderson model (1975) for spin glasses is investigated by a real space rescaling transformation on an S=1/2 Ising Hamiltonian with nearest-neighbour-only interactions in three dimensions. A transition to a spin glass ordered phase is found at about half the mean transition temperature, in contrast to earlier work on a two-dimensional model where no transition was found. The results suggest that the lower critical dimensionality, dc, for spin glass order is slightly greater than 2, although possibly dc=2 exactly. The specific heat is calculated and found to exhibit a broad maximum above Tc, with no discernable singularity at the transition since the exponent alpha is large and negative.

Micromagnetic simulations of interacting dipoles on an fcc lattice: application to nanoparticle assemblies.

Micromagnetic simulations are used to examine the effects of cubic and axial anisotropy, magnetostatic interactions and temperature on M-H loops for a collection of magnetic dipoles on fcc and sc lattices. We employ a simple model of interacting dipoles that represent single-domain particles in an attempt to explain recent experimental data on ordered arrays of magnetoferritin nanoparticles that demonstrate the crucial role of interactions between particles in an fcc lattice. Significant agreement between the simulation and experimental results is achieved, and the impact of intra-particle degrees of freedom and surface effects on thermal fluctuations is investigated.

Electrical Detection of Direct and Alternating Spin Current Injected from a Ferromagnetic Insulator into a Ferromagnetic Metal

We report room temperature electrical detection of spin injection from a ferromagnetic insulator (YIG) into a ferromagnetic metal (Permalloy, Py). Non-equilibrium spins with both static and precessional spin polarizations are dynamically generated by the ferromagnetic resonance of YIG magnetization, and electrically detected by Py as dc and ac spin currents, respectively. The dc spin current is electrically detected via the inverse spin Hall effect of Py, while the ac spin current is converted to a dc voltage via the spin rectification effect of Py which is resonantly enhanced by dynamic exchange interaction between the ac spin current and the Py magnetization. Our results reveal a new path for developing insulator spintronics, which is distinct from the prevalent but controversial approach of using Pt as the spin current detector.

Spin stiffness of stacked triangular antiferromagnets

We study the spin stiffness of stacked triangular antiferromagnets using both heat bath and broad histogram Monte Carlo methods. Our results are consistent with a continuous transition belonging to the chiral universality class first proposed by Kawamura.

Effective-field approximations for disordered magnets

Various effective-field approximation schemes are presented for describing the effects of fluctuations due to random spatial disorder on magnetic spin systems. An S=1/2 Ising model Hamiltonian is used, for which the spins occupy sites on a regular lattice but the exchange bonds are taken to be independent random variables. Both ferromagnetic and spin-glass types of ordering are considered. The results of the various approximation schemes are compared and related to previous work on disordered magnets.

Monte Carlo study of the anisotropic Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the triangular lattice

We report a Monte Carlo study of the classical antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model with easy axis anisotropy on the triangular lattice. Both the free energy cost for long wavelength spin waves as well as for the formation of free vortices are obtained from the spin stiffness and vorticity modulus respectively. Evidence for two distinct Kosterlitz-Thouless types of defect-mediated phase transitions at finite temperatures is presented.

Renormalization Group Study of a Three-Dimensional Lattice Model with Directional Bonding

We consider a bcc lattice model in which each site is either vacant or occupied by a molecule. The molecules have four symmetrically arranged arms directed towards four of the eight nearest-neighbor sites. Two molecules form a bond if they have bonding arms pointing towards each other and along their line of centers. We introduce bonding energies as well as two-, three-, and four-molecule interactions. The model is studied using a real-space renormalization group method. The form of the pressure-temperature phase diagram is found to be very sensitive to small changes in the relative sizes of the energy parameters. Adjustment of these parameters allows us to obtain a phase diagram which resembles that of the ice-water-steam system. The nature of the transitions between the various ordered phases is examined and the critical exponents are obtained.

Critical properties of a continuous family of XY noncollinear magnets

Monte Carlo methods are used to study a family of three dimensional XY frustrated models interpolating continuously between the stacked triangular antiferromagnets and a variant of this model for which a local rigidity constraint is imposed. Our study leads us to conclude that generically weak first order behavior occurs in this family of models in agreement with a recent nonperturbative renormalization group description of frustrated magnets.

Renormalization group study of a three-dimensional lattice model with directional bonding

We consider a bcc lattice model in which each site is either vacant or occupied by a molecule. The molecules have four symmetrically arranged arms directed towards four of the eight nearest-neighbor sites. Two molecules form a bond if they have bonding arms pointing towards each other and along their line of centers. We introduce bonding energies as well as two-, three-, and four-molecule interactions. The model is studied using a real-space renormalization group method. The form of the pressure-temperature phase diagram is found to be very sensitive to small changes in the relative sizes of the energy parameters. Adjustment of these parameters allows us to obtain a phase diagram which resembles that of the ice-water-steam system. The nature of the transitions between the various ordered phases is examined and the critical exponents are obtained.