Excess spin and the dynamics of antiferromagnetic ferritin

Temperature-dependent magnetization measurements on a series of synthetic ferritin proteins containing from 100 to 3000 Fe(III) ions are used to determine the uncompensated moment of these antiferromagnetic particles. The results are compared with recent theories of macroscopic quantum coherence which explicitly include the effect of this excess moment. The scaling of the excess moment with protein size is consistent with a simple model of finite-size effects and sublattice noncompensation. [S0163-1829(99)03429-3].