SPIN CANTING DUE TO STRUCTURAL DISORDER IN MAGHEMITE

The spin-canting effect has been studied in samples of maghemite parti cles with the same width of about 100 nm, but different length and wit h different degree of cation disorder. Mossbauer spectra obtained at 5 K with a magnetic field of 4 T applied parallel to the propagation di rection of the gamma rays showed that there is a correlation between t he degree of structural disorder and the spin-canting effect. The resu lts show that the observed spin canting is not a surface effect, but t hat atoms in the interior of the particles can be significantly influe nced by canting effects.