The magnetic moment of NiO nanoparticles determined by Mössbauer spectroscopy.

We have studied the magnetic properties of (57)Fe-doped NiO nanoparticles using Mössbauer spectroscopy and magnetization measurements. Two samples with different degrees of interparticle interaction were studied. In both samples the particles were characterized by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction and found to be plate-shaped. Computer simulations showed that high-field Mössbauer data are very sensitive to the size of the uncompensated magnetic moment. From analyses of the Mössbauer spectra we have estimated that the size of the uncompensated magnetic moment is in accordance with a model based on random occupation of surface sites. The analyses of the magnetization data gave larger magnetic moments, but the difference can be explained by the different sensitivity of the two methods to a particle size distribution and by interactions between the particles, which may have a strong influence on the moments estimated from magnetization data.

Evaluation of the solid state dipole moment and pyroelectric coefficient of phosphangulene by multipolar modeling of X-ray structure factors

The electron density distribution of the molecular pyroelectric material phosphangulene has been studied by multipolar modeling of X-ray diffraction data. The "in-crystal" molecular dipole moment has been evaluated to 4.7 D corresponding to a 42% dipole moment enhancement compared with the dipole moment measured in a chloroform solution. It is substantiated that the estimated standard deviation of the dipole moment is about 0.8 D. The standard uncertainty (s.u.) of the derived dipole moment has been derived by splitting the dataset into three independent data-sets. A novel method for obtaining pyroelectric coefficients has been introduced by combining the derived dipole moment with temperature-dependent measurements of the unit cell volume. The derived pyroelectric coefficient of 3.8(7) x 10-6 Cm 2K-1 is in very good agreement with the measured pyroelectric coefficient of p = 3 +/- 1 x 10-6 Cm-2 K-1. This method for obtaining the pyroelectric coefficient uses information from the X-ray diffraction experiment alone and can be applied to much smaller crystals than traditional methods.