Ferromagnetic resonance of nonstoichiometric zinc ferrite and cobalt-doped zinc ferrite nanoparticles

Ferromagnetic resonance spectra of zinc ferrite and cobalt doped zinc ferrite nanoparticles, measured at various temperatures, exhibit an invariant point at a given field. This makes it possible to determine the equation relating the resonance field shift to the peak-to-peak linewidth. When particles are frozen in a matrix in a magnetic field, the anisotropy constant of the material can be derived from the angular variation of the resonance field. This procedure is useful to determine the thermal dependence of the anisotropy constant, but is shown to require various freezing temperatures experiments to estimate the accuracy of the deduced anisotropy constant values. It is also shown that the angular dependence of the resonance field is similar for a uniaxial (zinc ferrite) and cubic (zinc ferrite containing 40% cobalt ions) anisotropy. This unexpected result is explained by the weakness of the texturation, leading to a distribution in easy axes directions. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.