The coercive force and remanence of essentially spherical iron and iron-cobalt alloy particles with diameters from 20 to 3000 Å have been measured at 4°, 76°, and 207°K and compared to the theoretically predicted behavior. The remanence shows a broad, plateau-like maximum while the coercive force has a rather sharp maximum. The maximum of the coercive force occurs at a much larger particle diameter than the maximum of the remanence. It is shown that these essential characteristics follow from the theory. Deviations from theory are seen in the smaller size range and can be accounted for by the distribution of particle sizes. A general treatment of the coercive force of mixtures of thermally stable, high coercive force particles with superparamagnetic and multidomain particles is given.

No abstract

The development of permanent magnet materials is briefly reviewed. The present status of fine particle magnets is discussed from the viewpoint of our present understanding and lack of understanding of their behavior. The present methods of preparation and the various theoretical descriptions of the properties of elongated particles are reviewed. New work is presented relating the parameters of preparation to the resulting diameter of the elongated particles prepared by electrolysis into mercury. Rotational hysteresis,coercive force, and coercive force as a function of orientation are reported for particle diameters from 130 A to 305 A. Their behavior is compared to various theoretical descriptions and found to correspond to a noncoherent magnetization reversal mechanism most similar to the chain-of-spheres fanning model rather than the curling, buckling or coherent rotation models. Iron and iron-cobalt alloy particle magnets are described with maximum energy products up to 4.3 and 6.5 million gauss-oe, respectively.

No abstract

No abstract