Modeling Verwey transition temperature of Fe3O4 nanocrystals

The Verwey transition in nanoscale is an important physicalproperty for Fe3O4nanocrystals and has attracted extensive attention in recent years. In this work, an analytic thermodynamicmodel without any adjusting parameters is developed to estimate the size and shape effects on modulating the Verwey transition temperature of Fe3O4nanocrystals. The results show that the Verwey transition temperature reduces with increasing shape parameterλ or decreasing sizeD. A good agreement between the prediction and the experimental data verified our physical insight that the Verwey transition of Fe3O4 can be directly related to the atomic thermal vibration. The results presented in this work will be of benefit to the understanding of the microscopic mechanism of the Verwey transition and the design of future generation switching and memory devices.

Source: Applied Physics Letters - November 15, 2016 Category: Physics Authors: Xiao bao Jiang, Bei bei Xiao, Hong yu Yang, Xiao yan Gu, Hong chao Sheng and Xing hua Zhang Source Type: research