The M ssbauer Effect in Iron Alloys

Abstract

Alloys of iron with cobalt, nickel, vanadium, chromium, manganese, aluminium and silicon have been studied using the Mössbauer effect. In ferromagnetic alloys the variation of hyperfine field at 57Fe nuclei with electron concentration is qualitatively similar to that of the saturation magnetic moment of the alloys. Owing to the lack of information concerning the relation between the spin density at the nucleus and the spin density in the environment, a more quantitative relationship with the individual magnetic moments of the iron and solute atoms cannot be derived at present. In atomically disordered alloys the line broadening, which measures the extent of the fluctuations in hyperfine field, depended upon the difference between the iron and solute atomic moments; in ordered alloys (e.g. Fe3Al) the lines were not broadened. Several of the non-ferromagnetic alloys showed magnetic ordering (presumably antiferromagnetic) at low temperatures.