When circularly polarized light travels through a ferrofluid film in the presence of an applied magnetic field, the transmitted light will behave as elliptically polarized light, because of magnetic birefringence and dichroism. The angular distribution of the relative intensity of the transmitted light can be obtained using a polarizer, so that the ratio of both the long and short ax- es-as well as the orientation angle of the ellipse, corresponding to the direction of the applied magnetic field--can be deter- mined, and whether the ferrofluids samples are stable during the measurement can be directly judged from the shape of the distribution curves. Thus, the ratio of the amplitudes Ax/Ay and the added phase difference A r can be resolved in the elliptically polarized light, and information on both the magnetic birefringence An and the dichroism Ak can be deduced for the ferrofluid sample. From the orientation angles of both right-handed and left-handed elliptically polarized transmitted light, the direction of the applied magnetic field can be accurately determined. Using circularly polarized light, the magnetic birefringence and dichroism of pure γ-Fe2O3 ferrofluids and γ--Fe2O3/ZnFe2O4 binary ferrofluids were studied. For the binary ferrofluids, a mod- ulating effect on the magnetic birefringence and dichroism was revealed.
FU Jun LI Jian LIN YueQiang LIU XiaoDong MIAO Hua LIN LiHua
Fe5O7(OH)4H2O ferrihydrite is a low-crystallinity antiferromagnetic material.c-Fe2O3(maghemite)magnetic nanoparticles were prepared from a ferrihydrite precursor,by chemically induced transformation in FeCl2/NaOH solution.The magnetization,morphology,crystal structure and chemical composition of the products were determined by vibrating sample magnetometry,transmission electron microscopy,X-ray diffraction(XRD),energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS).Ferrihydrite underwent aggregation growth and transformed into a-FeO(OH)(goethite)particles,which subsequently transformed into c-Fe2O3nanoparticles,that became coated with NaCl.The c-Fe2O3particles had a flake-like morphology,when prepared from 0.01 mol/L FeCl2and a FeCl2:NaOH molar ratio of 0.4.The c-Fe2O3particles were more spherical,when prepared from a FeCl2:NaOH molar ratio of 0.6.The Fe content of the flake-like particles was lower than that of the spherical particles.Their magnetizations were similar,and the coercivity of the flake-like particles was larger.The differences in morphology and magnetization were attributed to the surface effect,and the difference in coercivity to the shape effect.
Xiaomin GongJian LiYueqiang LinXiaodong LiuLonglong ChenJunming LiDecai Li
