Surface driven exchange bias in nanocrystalline CoCr 2 O 4

This article reports exchange bias (EB) in nanocrystalline cobalt chromite CoCr2O4, - a phenomenon manifested by loop shift followed by increase in coercivity after cooling the sample in static magnetic field. The average particle size of the nanocrystalline CoCr2O4 is 30 nm, confirmed from transmission electron microscopy images. Thermal variation of magnetization data M(T), in zero field cooling (ZFC) and field cooling (FC) modes depict long range order below the lock-in transition at T-L approximate to 16 K, spin-spiral transition at T-S approximate to 28 K and a collinear ferrimagnetic state at T-C approximate to 100 K. Magnetic hysteresis loops are recorded in ZFC and FC modes at different cooling fields (H-cool). In addition, hysteresis loops are recorded in FC mode for a wide temperature range. In both cases, a clear signature of conventional exchange bias effect is observed. Analysis of the training effect in magnetic hysteresis loop and temperature dependent ac susceptibility (chi(ac)) at different frequencies suggest that the surface spins of CoCr2O4 nanoparticles play an important role in controlling the magnetic properties, and enhance the EB effect in collaboration with competition between non-collinear spiral spin state and collinear long range ferrimagnetic order.