Conversion electron Mö ssbauer spectroscopy with applied magnetic fields up to 0.4 T was used to study aggregation states of iron atoms in an a-Al 2 O 3 single crystal implanted with 57 Fe + ions at a dose of 1.5 Â 10 17 ions/cm 2 . Consistent fits to all the spectra were achieved with five components for the iron states: spherical fine a-Fe particles that exhibit superparamagnetic relaxation, oblate ellipsoidal a-Fe particles exhibiting collective magnetic excitations, g-Fe-like paramagnetic clusters, and two kinds of ferrous oxides. From the analysis of hyperfine field distributions of the component subspectra, particle-size distributions were obtained for the two a-Fe components. The average diameter of the superparamagnetic a-Fe particles was found to be about 3.5 nm, while that for the oblate ellipsoidal a-Fe particles was about 6.2 nm with a dimensional ratio (major axis/minor axis) of about 1.35, which suggests an anisotropic evolution of the precipitated a-Fe during the implantation.