Brownian particle-kinetics in a superparamagnetic ferrofluid subjected to static magnetic-field.

The stochastic Brownian particle-kinetics in a superparamagnetic ferrofluid at room temperature is of significance in nullifying total magnetization vectors of the suspended particles. Correspondingly, the apparent magnetization response observed under static magnetic field shows no hysteresis loop, but being linear at a given finite field-difference. Owing to this superparamagnetism, we propose a differential magnetometry to analyze the static fieldinduced particle-kinetics and further to identify the effective field-strength in reorienting particle-moments toward the applied field direction. A polydispersive ferrofluid containing iron-oxide nanoparticles, in practice, is subjected to a verylow oscillatory-field, immediately after applying the static-field. For a given frequency, we confirm a decreasing ac susceptibility as dc field-strength increases, which suggests a statistically less fluctuating magnetization-vectors. Via numerical integration of ac susceptibility recorded, we furthermore estimate the nonlinear quasi-static magnetization at various measurement frequencies. The resulting nonlinearity is attributable to the contributing relaxation dynamics of the particles. More importantly, the difference between dc and ac susceptibilities is found to be field-strength and frequencydependent. Its value is further maximized at an effective field-strength, from which we identified the coexisting energybarriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]