Role of the surface effects and interparticle magnetic interactions in the temperature evolution of magnetic resonance spectra of ferrihydrite nanoparticle ensembles

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rinp.2022.105340

Ferrihydrite is characterized by the antiferromagnetic ordering and, in ferrihydrite nanoparticles, as in nanoparticles of any antiferromagnetic material, an uncompensated magnetic moment is formed. We report on the investigations of ferrihydrite powder systems with an average particle size of ∼ 2.5 nm obtained (i) as a product of the vital activity of bacteria (sample FH-bact) and (ii) by a chemical method (sample FH-chem). In the first approximation, these samples can be considered to be identical. However, in sample FH-chem, particles contact directly, while in sample FH-bact, they have organic shells; therefore, the interparticle magnetic interactions in these samples have different degrees. The main goal of this work has been to establish the effects of the interparticle magnetic interactions and individual characteristics of ferrihydrite nanoparticles on ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) spectra. The FMR spectra have been measured at different (9.4–75 GHz) frequencies in a wide temperature range. It has been found that, at low temperatures, the field-frequency dependence ν(H_R) of the investigated systems has a gap ν/γ = H_R + H^A, where H_R is the resonance field and H^A is the induced anisotropy, which decreases with increasing temperature. To estimate a degree of the effect of interparticle interactions on the results obtained and to correctly determine the temperature range of the superparamagnetic (or blocked) state, the static magnetic measurement and Mössbauer spectroscopy data have been obtained and analyzed. It has been shown that the most striking feature of the FMR spectra - a gap in the field-frequency dependences - is a manifestation of individual characteristics of ferrihydrite nanoparticles. The induced anisotropy is caused by freezing of a subsystem of surface spins and its coupling with the particle core, which is observed in both samples at a temperature of ∼80 K. The temperature range (below 80 K) in which the gap exists corresponds to the blocked state in the FMR technique. In sample FH-bact, the ratio between the FMR parameters H^A and linewidth ΔH obeys the standard expression H^A ∼ (ΔH)³. In sample FH-chem, however, the interparticle magnetic interactions dramatically affect the behavior of parameters of the FMR spectra, which change nonmonotonically upon temperature variation. This fact is attributed to the collective freezing of the magnetic moments of particles under the conditions of sufficiently strong interactions, which follows from the temperature dependence of the particle magnetic moment relaxation time determined from the Mössbauer spectroscopy and static magnetometry data obtained in weak magnetic fields.