Characteristics of paramagnetic and diamagnetic anisotropy which induce magnetic alignment of micron-sized non-ferromagnetic particles : Structural and functional control of materials through solid-solid phase transformations in high magnetic field

Abstract

The effect of temperature is discussed on the magnetic-alignment process of micron-sized particles dispersed in a fluid medium, based on the experimental data compiled on various non-ferromagnetic materials having different concentrations of paramagnetic impurity ion. The field-intensity required to achieve alignment decreased with temperature following the relation calculated from the Langevin theory, when the diamagnetic particles were free of paramagnetic ions. The rotational Brownian motion was considered to randomize the direction of the microcrystals in the theory. The above-mentioned temperature dependence was expected to occur for most of the diamagnetic oxides, since the oxides were expected to possess a finite amount of diamagnetic anisotropy according to a model proposed recently to explain the origin of anisotropy. The decease of temperature caused additional reduction on the field-intensity to achieve alignment, when a finite amount of paramagnetic ion was contained in the particle. This was because the paramagnetic anisotropy increased which the reduction of temperature. The doping of paramagnetic ion on non-ferromagnetic materials in the course of processing a material expected to reduce the field intensity to achieve magnetic alignment at room temperature. The above findings, concerned with the reduction of field intensity to achieve magnetic alignment, may increase the possibility of practical applications of the phenomena of magnetic alignment.