We study the effect of nanometric size on the crystal structure, magnetic environment of iron and magnetization in NdFeO3 system of nanoparticles. The average particle size of NdFeO3 nanoparticles increases with annealing at 600• C from about 15 nm to 40 nm. The smallest particles on annealed sample have size approximately 30 nm and typically have character of single crystalline samples. All samples adopt orthorhombic crystal structure, space group Pnma with lattice parameters a = 5.5817 Å, b = 7.7663 Å and c = 5.456 Å for as prepared sample. The presence of superparamagnetic particles was indicated by the Mössbauer measurements. The reduction of dimensionality induces a decrease of TN1 from 691 K to 544 K. The shift of magnetic hysteresis loop in vertical and horizontal direction was observed at low temperatures after cooling in magnetic field. We attribute such behaviour to exchange bias effect and discuss in the frame of core-shell model.
IntroductionThe exchange bias (EB) was discovered more than 55 years ago, by Meiklejohn and Bean on Co/CoO coreshell nanoparticles [1], and its characteristic signature is the horizontal shift of the centre of magnetic hysteresis loop from its normal position at H = 0 to another one at H e = 0 and vertical shift which can be characterised by remnant asymmetry µ e . EB usually occurs in systems which are composed by an antiferromagnet (AFM) that is in atomic contact with a ferromagnet (FM) after the system is cooled, below the respective Néel and Curie temperatures T N and T C , in an external cooling field H cf . EB phenomena were observed in various materials like the Laves phases, intermetallic compounds and alloys, binary alloys, the Heusler alloys [2] or on layered bulk fluorometallocomplex [3], where different aspects of magnetism were focused from the EB effect. The first evidence of the EB effect in mixed-valent manganites having perovskite structure was reported in a spontaneously phase separated system Pr 1/3 Ca 2/3 MnO 3 [4] which stimulated new interest for study of the EB effect in structurally single-phase compounds. In the case of a nanoparticle (NAP) system the surface to volume ratio becomes significantly large compared to the bulk counterpart. In such a case the surface effect dominates over and core-shell model can provide good interpretation of observed phenomena. Both concepts were frequently used for interpretation of EB effects in the La 1−x Ca x MnO 3 [5, 6], Nd 0.5 Ca 0.5 MnO 3 [7] and Pr 0.5 Ca