Neutron scattering experiments on itinerant electron magnets

• Published in: Physica B + C 1977-01, Vol.91, p.119-129
• Main Author: Windsor, C.G.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0378-4363
• DOI: 10.1016/0378-4363(77)90175-9

This review sketches the wide contributions made by neutron scattering to the study of the 3d transition element itinerant magnets. Early elastic scattering measurements helped to determine the magnetic moment, its spatial distribution and its temperature variation. The precision polarized neutron measurements on the ferromagnets have given the atomic configuration. Inelastic measurements using a variety of techniques are slowly unravelling the spectrum of elementary excitations — the spin waves — which can in principle reveal the complete hamiltonian. In reviewing the earlier measurements of limited energy range we show that these often be explained by a variety of models and we describe the more recent measurements with extended energy ranges extending into the Stoner band, and extended temperature ranges covering the paramagnetic phase which are beginning to answer the fundamental questions of the origin of itinerant magnetism.