1206.6734 (J. C. Loudon)

Incommensurate Antiferromagnetic Structure in NiO Observed by Electron
Diffraction    [PDF]

J. C. Loudon

Neutron diffraction has been used to investigate antiferromagnetism since 1949. Here we show that antiferromagnetic reflections can also be seen in transmission electron diffraction patterns from NiO. In some regions the antiferromagnetic structure was incommensurate with the crystal so the magnetic unit cell need not be an exact doubling of the structural cell as is usually assumed. The diffraction patterns taken here came from 140 nm-diameter regions but there is no reason why patterns could not be taken with a resolution of a few nanometres and used to image the antiferromagnetic structure.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.6734