Low-lying magnetic excitations, magnetic irreversibility and approach-to-saturation in nanocrystalline Ni.

We demonstrate that the thermal demagnetization at temperatures T ≤ 350 K in pulse electrodeposited nanocrystalline (nc-) Ni samples with average grain size d = 10 nm and d = 20 nm is due to spin waves, spin-wave modes soften as d reduces, the interfacial/grain boundary magnetocrystalline anisotropy plays a crucial role in causing magnetic irreversibility at fields H ≤ 2 kOe and in governing the approach-to-saturation of magnetization in nc-Ni. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]