Thermal and magnetic properties of a ferrimagnetic nanoparticle with spin-3/2 core and spin-1 shell structure

Intensive Monte Carlo simulations based on standard Metropolis algorithm have been applied to investigate the phase diagrams of a ferrimagnetic cubic nanoparticle (nanocube) with a spin-312 core surrounded by a spin-1 shell layer with antiferromagnetic interface coupling. It has been shown that occupation of sites of particle core by spin-312 plays an important role on the shape of the phase diagrams. In addition, effects of the crystal field interaction as well as exchange interactions on the thermal and magnetic properties of the system have also been discussed in detail, and some interesting features have been observed for the temperature dependence of total magnetization curves of particle. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.