On the interpretation of magnetization data for antiferromagnetic nanoparticles

We have investigated the influence of anisotropy on the magnetization curves of antiferromagnetic nanoparticles. We show that if such curves are analyzed in a conventional way, i.e. using a Langevin function in combination with a linear term, this usually results in good quality fits, but with an apparent temperature dependence of parameters such as the magnetic moment per particle and the anti ferromagnetic susceptibility. In order to avoid the problems associated with anisotropy as well as volume/moment distributions we propose that the initial susceptibility is used when analyzing the temperature dependence of the magnetic moment. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.