Remanent magnetization plots of fine particles with competing cubic and uniaxial anisotropies

Abstract

Magnetization and remanent magnetization curves for noninteracting single-domain particles whose anisotropy is made up of a cubic magnetocrystalline and an uniaxial components were investigated. For a given cubic anisotropy, the saturation remanence, coercivity, remanence coercivity, and coercivity factor values have been obtained for several different uniaxial anisotropy directions. The corresponding δM plots have been constructed for initially thermal or ac demagnetized systems, and a great variety of their shapes has been obtained when the uniaxial anisotropy does not dominate. Coercivity factor values rather higher than those for pure uniaxial or cubic anisotropy particles have been obtained as well, even for already dominating uniaxial anisotropy for some uniaxial anisotropy directions. Thus, it has been shown that one may not safely draw conclusions about interactions from deviations from the zero line in the δM plots or coercivity factor values for particles with competing anisotropies without specific analysis for any particular case.