Understanding magnetic interactions and reversal mechanisms in a spinodally decomposed cobalt ferrite using first order reversal curves

Cobalt ferrites exhibit widely varied magnetic behaviour due to the presence of a miscibility gap leading to the formation of periodic self-assembled nanostructures via spinodal decomposition. Periodicity and amplitude of the compositional fluctuations can be controlled by thermodynamic and kinetic processing parameters which allows for careful tuning of the magnetic properties. Although reports have shown evidence of spinodal decomposition, there is a lack of detailed characterization of the magnetic interactions and reversal mechanisms in these materials. In this work we use high-resolution first order reversal curves (FORC) measurements to understand the underlying magnetic processes occurring in a cobalt ferrite with a nominal composition of Co1.8Fe1.2O4 before (calcined) and after spinodal decomposition (annealed). Additionally, FORC measurements with preconditioning fields were conducted to separate the interaction signatures at low coercive fields by biasing the sample in positive and negative mean fields. Microstructural characterization using TEM combined with EDS showed uniform chemistry in the calcined sample and the presence of Fe rich and Co rich regions in the annealed sample, due to spinodal decomposition. Signs of positive exchange interactions were observed in both calcined and annealed samples. This work presents the first detailed magnetic characterization of magnetic interactions in a nanostructured cobalt ferrite, and provides an example of magnetic characterization of nanostructured ferrites using FORC.