Field Induced Magnetic Moments in a Metastable Iron-Mercury Alloy

The magnetic properties of a metastable iron-mercury alloy have been investigated in the temperature range from 5 to 200 K by Mossbauer spectroscopy and magnetization measurements. At low temperature the magnetic moment per iron atom is larger than af alpha-Fe. The effective spontaneous magnetic moment for the iron-mercury alloy extrapolated to 0 K was found to be 2.40 Bohr magnetons per iron atom. By applying magnetic fields up to 12 T it was possible to further increase the magnetization. Mossbauer results showed that the high field susceptibility could not be explained by spin canting effects. It was found that the field-induced increase of the magnetic moment in the metastable iron-mecury alloy was about 0.06 Bohr magnetons per iron atom in the temperature range from 5 to 200 K for a field change from 6 to 12 T.