THE REMANENCE OF A STONER-WOHLFARTH PARTICLE ENSEMBLE AS A FUNCTION OF THE DEMAGNETIZATION PROCESS

Measurements of the remanent magnetisation are a well-known tool for t he comparison of a real particle system's magnetic properties with tho se of an ideal Stoner-Wohlfarth ensemble. Unfortunately, the mathemati cal derivation of the magnetic remanence field dependencies for this i deal particle system is mostly neglected in literature. Because of thi s fact we calculate in detail the remanent magnetisation versus the ap plied held of ideal noninteracting Stoner-Wohlfarth particles for diff erent processes of demagnetisation (statistical particle arrangement d uring preparation, demagnetisation due to AC erase, DC demagnetisation in both held directions). Using this results we are able to show the relations between different remanent magnetisations. One of these lead s to the well-known Henkel plot. Finally we consider samples with a pr eferred direction in the easy-axis distribution (texture) and refer to an interesting simple alternative to the popular Henkel plot. The res ults are presented in mathematical expressions for the case of a three -dimensional particle arrangement and the two-dimensional case as well . (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.