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Classics in Magnetics Summary of Losses in Magnetic Materials

John B. Goodenough
AbstractCurrent concepts of the physical origin and mechanisms of losses in magnetic materials are reviewed under three traditional categories: hysteresis losses, eddy-current or dielectric losses, and residual losses. The phenomenological LandauLifshitz equation is used to quantitatively express the various manifestations of the residual losses. Possible physical mechanisms contributing to the phenomenologically introduced LandauLifshitz damping term are qualitatively discussed.

I. INTRODUCTION NY DISCUSSION of energy losses in magnetic or other materials almost necessarily presupposes specific engineering applications in which these considerations are of extreme practical importance. Certainly magnetic losses have historically captured the interest of physicists, metallurgists, or ceramists because of their practical significance to the electrical engineer or applied physicist. Whatever the origin of the interest, a systematic pursuit of loss minimization leads directly to a study of the basic physical and chemical mechanisms of matter. The study has, therefore, intrinsic interest for the physicist, metallurgist, and chemist as well as for the electrical engineer. Such a study can be broken down into two levels or steps: in the first, the various engineering parameters are expressed in terms of basic, measurable parameters characteristic of magnetic materials in general. This requires an understanding of the basic macroscopic properties of magnetic matter. Since most of these basic parameters are, or must eventually be, expressible in terms of crystalline energy states and wave functions, in terms of chemical-bonding energies, electron-spin and orbital magnetic moments, exchange interactions, and crystal symmetry, the second step is to determine the relationship between these parameters and chemistry or processing procedures of particular materials. Only after this second step has been accomplished is it possible to intelligently invent new materials or processing procedures for optimizing specific applications. In this brief review, discussion must be limited to a qualitative description of the macroscopic physical mechanisms curThis work was supported by the Army, Navy, and Air Force under contract with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This paper was originally published in Conference on Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, Boston, MA, October 1618, 1956. New York: American Institute of Electrical Engineers, February 1957, pp. 368387. For this republication, the original paper was edited slightly by the author. The author was with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, MA 02420-9108 USA. He is now with the Texas Materials Institute, The University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712 USA. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMAG.2002.802741.

Fig. 1. Initial magnetization curve and hysteresis loop for a typical ferromagnet.

rently believed responsible for losses in magnetic materials. The second step of the problem is neglected. In Section II, the various factors that contribute to magnetic hysteresis are discussed. In Section III, eddy-current and dielectric losses are considered. The LandauLifshitz formalism and its application to domain-wall damping and ferromagnetic resonance are reviewed in Section IV. In Section V, there is a brief discussion of the current theoretical ideas of what actual physical mechanisms are responsible for the damping phenomenologically expressed by the LandauLifshitz equation. II. HYSTERESIS A. Origin of Hysteresis Loss Over certain portions the magnetization curve ( versus , where is the magnetic induction through the material and is the applied external field) for a torroidal core is irreversible as shown in Fig. 1. Because the flux-change mechanisms can be irreversible, energy is dissipated in the medium in the form of heat with each flux-reversal cycle. In reversible processes, energy is stored in the lattice just as potential energy is stored in a spring that is compressed by an external force. In irreversible processes, energy is dissipated as heat in the additional degrees of freedom that are excited in the lattice. The actual physical processes by which energy is dissipated in the course of a quasistatic traversal of the hysteresis loop are identical with those responsible for the dynamic losses. This is because the quasistatic hysteresis loop is traversed by successive rapid, irre-

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versible changes each within a small region of the lattice, the so-called Barkhausen jumps. These rapid, irreversible changes are produced by relatively strong local fields within the material. These small, rapid changes have associated with them the same losses that are associated with macroscopic dynamic changes. However, it is convenient to isolate the quasistatic from the macroscopically dynamic processes as the total effect of the varying internal magnetic fields can be known from a measurement of the quasistatic loop. The energy per unit volume of a magnetic material of magne. Therefore, tization in an external field is given by the sum of the energy stored and the heat dissipated in a magto netic material whose magnetization changes from when placed in a magnetic field is

Reference to Fig. 1 shows that if the loop had been plotted with instead of for the ordinate scale, the total energy put into to would be the area bethe system on going from tween the ordinate and the corresponding magnetization curve. Similarly the energy restored to the specimen when the field is removed is the area between the ordinate and the magnetization to . Therefore, in going around the hyscurve from teresis loop, energy equivalent to the area of the loop is dissipated as heat in the specimen. This energy dissipation is known as hysteresis loss. This loss is present even if the loop is tra, this enversed in a quasistatic manner. Because ergy loss per cycle may be written in cgs units as erg/cm Since the area of the hysteresis loop increases with increasing , this energy loss can be plotted as a maximum induction . From such a relationship, Steinmetz [1] exfunction of pressed the energy loss by the empirical equation erg/(cm s).

they order parallel to one another. In Nel ferrimagnetic materials there are two sublattices. The atomic moments order parallel to the other moments of their sublattice, antiparallel to the moments of the other sublattice. The material has ferromagnetic properties because the net moment on one sublattice is greater than that on the other. As a magnetic material is cooled through the Curie temperature, ordered regions of different orientation are created. These regions are called magnetic domains. The transition regions between neighboring domains are called domain walls. In contrast to the transition regions between crystallographic domains (grains)the grain boundariesdomain walls can move through the lattice at lower temperatures. There are, therefore, two mechanisms by which flux may change inside a magnetic material: domain rotation and domain-wall motion. Both processes may be reversible or irreversible. In the first of these mechanisms, the magnetic moments within a domain rotate in unison. In the second, the moments within a domain wall rotate as the wall moves to a new position. This flux change is characterized by a sequential rotation of spins. It is intuitively obvious, therefore, that a domain-rotation mechanism is intrinsically faster than a domain-wall-motion mechanism. Since the basic physical process for flux reversal is rotation of the atomic moments, the damping process which limits the speed of rotation is the same for either process. This fact is important for the design of magnetic components with fast flux-reversal characteristics. 2) Energy Considerations: The factor that determines the relative importance of domain-wall motion and domain rotation in any particular flux change is the free energy of the system. There are four principal magnetic contributions to the free energy of a magnetic specimen. The first of these is the magnetostatic energy

lower than This expression holds fairly well for values of the knee of the initial magnetization curve. Values of the Steinmetz coefficient and the constant are often given for sheet materials to be used in transformers and in parts of rotating electrical machinery. B. Factors Influencing Shape and Area of Loop

1) Flux-Change Mechanisms: The magnetic flux per unit cross-sectional area is defined as the magnetic induction . In . As is indicated in Fig. 1, apcgs units as is increased to very large proaches a saturation value is determined by the density and values. The magnitude of magnitude of individual atomic moments that contribute to it. Flux changes resulting from externally applied magnetic fields are normally not the result of variations in the magnitude of the individual atomic moments; rather they are due to changes in their individual orientations. , the Below a critical temperature, the Curie temperature atomic moments become ordered. In ferromagnetic material

which results from the interaction of the atomic magnetic moments with the local internal magnetic field . This local field varies from point to point within the specimen and is a function of the externally applied field strength, the saturation moment , the shape of the specimen, the crystalline imperfections, and the degree of magnetization. The second and third contributions to the magnetic free energy result from the interaction between the atomic magnetic moments and the crystalline lattice. For purposes of convenience, the results of this interaction are expressed in terms of two empirically determinable energies, the magnetocrystalline-anisotropy energy

and the magnetostrictive energy

Since the total interaction energy is most stable when the moments are oriented along certain crystallographic axesthe axes

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Fig. 3. Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of a 180 domain wall.

Theoretical hysteresis loops for uniaxial thin magnetic films.

of easy magnetizationthe magnetocrystalline-anisotropy energy density expresses, in terms of empirically determinable , the energy required to rotate the proportionality constants magnetic moments away from an axis of easy magnetization with zero applied mechanical stress. Thus, symmetry considerations dictate that

where are the direction cosines of the magnetic moment with respect to the crystalline axes in a cubic crystal, and is the angle the moment makes with the unique axis in a lattice with but one axis of easy magnetization. Magnetostriction is the nomenclature applied to the changes that occur in lattice dimensions as the magnetic-moment orientation is changed with respect to the crystallographic axes. If mechanical stresses or constraints are present, the stable energy state is influenced by this magneto-mechanical coupling. Finally there is the contribution to the free energy of the system that comes from the magnetic-exchange interaction, the interaction between magnetic moments to orient them parallel or antiparallel to their neighbors. The physical origin of this interaction resides in the symmetry properties of wave mechanics. For many purposes, the matrices of atomic moments may be considered as classical vectors. In this case it is possible as a function proporto express the exchange energy density tional to an exchange constant [erg/cm] and a term expressing the misalignment of neighboring atomic moments with distance is an empirical meaof separation. The Curie temperature sure of the magnitude of . In Fig. 2 is shown a diagram of a 180 wall. Through the wall the spins are oriented so as to keep the magnetostatic energy a minimum. Further, in a domain wall spins are oriented away from an easy axis of magnetization and are not parallel to the axis of their neighboring spins. Therefore, the total anisotropy energy per unit area of wall is reduced if the wall is narrowed whereas the exchange energy is reduced if the wall is broadened. The total energy per unit area of domain wall is the sum of these two contributions and is a minimum when these two contributions are equal. Thus, the energy per unit area of a domain , where is an effective wall has the form . anisotropy constant, and the thickness of a wall is

The effective anisotropy is determined not only by the magnetocrystalline anisotropy and magnetostriction, it is also determined by the local fields , which depend upon the orientation of the moments with respect to the dimensions of the sample and to lattice imperfections. 3) Irreversible Rotation: It was pointed out in Section II-A that only the irreversible processes contribute to hysteresis losses. In most materials, domain-wall creation and motion contribute to the irreversible flux changes. However, there are two geometries that are of practical importance because irreversible domain-rotation processes can be made to predominate in materials with these shapes. The first geometry is the fine particle: a magnetic particle that is too small for domain-wall formation to be energetically favorable. This geometry is extremely important for permanent magnets. Materials with large, uniaxial, magnetocrystalline anisotropy are formed in, or are ground to, small particle size with needle-like shapes, the axis of the needle coinciding with the easy axis of magnetization. If the particle is smaller than a domain-wall width, flux reversal takes place only by rotation against the large shape and crystalline anisotropy fields. High coercivities result. The second geometry is the thin ( 1000 ) magnetic film. The purpose of this geometry is to provide a low-coercivity material in which flux reversal takes place by domain rotation. In this geometry, shape anisotropy keeps the magnetic moments in the plane of the film. If the film is deposited in the presence of a magnetic field parallel to the plane of the film, uniaxial anisotropy develops along the direction of the magnetic field. Fig. 3 illustrates the hysteresis loops that are characteristic of such a film when the driving field is, respectively, perpendicular and parallel to the unique axis. These characteristics are and the calculated from the anisotropy energy magneto-static energy. In the first case, the flux-reversal process is completely reversible and there is no hysteresis. This type of loop has been experimentally observed. In the second case, there is no rotation until the torque due to the applied field is sufficient to overcome the anisotropy forces. Since the torque increases faster than the anisotropy restoring forces as the magnetization is pulled away from the easy-magnetization direction, a sudden irreversible 180 rotation takes place. This provides an extremely square hysteresis loop. In practice, domain walls perpendicular to the film are also energetically feasible and domain-wall processes compete with the domain-rotation process.

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Fig. 4.

Typical

B H loops for materials with (a) H < 0, (b) H > 0.

Although square, low-frequency hysteresis loops have been observed, these can usually be shown to be due to domain walls. . These loops have a coercivity In films with sufficiently low anisotropy that is of the order of 1 Oe, domain rotation processes can be initiated by a fast-rise-time ( 1 ns) driving-field pulse that is uniform over the film. Flux-reversal speeds at least compatible with a rotation process are observed [2]. Attempts are currently being made to exploit these potentialities for switching devices and storage elements in high-speed digital computers. 4) Domain-Wall Processes: Except in the special instances cited above, the principal irreversible mechanism responsible for the magnetic hysteresis loop is domain-wall motion. Therefore, in order to understand the usual mechanisms contributing to the hysteresis losses, i.e., to the area of the hysteresis loop, it is necessary to understand the mechanisms that determine domain-wall creation and motion. In order to reverse saturated magnetization, domains of reverse magnetization must be created. These domains will be created in the neighborhood of crystalline imperfections or at a crystal surface where domain creation can reduce the energy associated with large local fields . If the local fields are sufficiently strong to create many domains of reverse magnetization when the external field is still in the direction of the initial saturation field, the remanence value will be low (see Fig. 4). In some materials the remanence value is practically zero, and the loop has a butterfly shape. In other materials there is little or no reverse-domain creation until the external field is opposed to the direction of the initial saturation field. These materials have a high remanence. It is often possible to control the shape of the loop by either controlling the shape and lattice imperfections of the specimen, or controlling the effects of these imperfections. A striking illustration of this is control of the effects of the grain boundary. Because the crystallographic directions change on passing through a grain boundary, the normal components of the magnetization vectors in the two grains adjacent to a boundary are not usually equal at remanence, and grain-boundary magnetic poles exist. Commonly the local fields associated with these poles are sufficiently great to cause reverse-domain creation at the grain boundary [3]. Three methods have been used to reduce these grain-boundary poles: a) grain orientation by cold rolling to reduce the misalignment of easy-magnetization directions from grain to grain; b) a magnetic anneal; or c) application of a tensile stress to produce a common axis of easy magneti-

Fig. 5. Hysteresis loops of 68 permalloy under tension. Maximum field strength 5 Oe.

zation despite the varied grain orientations. A typical effect is illustrated in Fig. 5. The development of oriented materials has been extremely important for transformer design, magnetic amplifiers, and magnetic switches. In materials with such extremely square loops that the external field for wall creation is greater than that for wall motion, the reverse-domain nucleation field may determine the coercivity ; but in most materials this quantity is determined by domain-wall surface tension and internal fields resulting from specimen shape or lattice imperfections, the walls stabilizing in positions that minimize the energy associated with them. Precipitates, inclusions, cold work, grain size, grain orientation, . The and specimen shape are all important in determining important intrinsic parameters that enter into the various terms and . The contributing to the coercivity are by suitable chemistry and processing techniques control of is extremely important in magnetic-material design. III. EDDY-CURRENT AND DIELECTRIC LOSS A. Flux Changes Throughout a Conductor In 1831 Faraday found that whenever the number of tubes of magnetic flux linking a closed circuit are changed, an induced current results. The current so induced flows in such a direction that its magnetic field opposes the change in magnetic flux that produces it. Consequently whenever the flux is changed inside a ferromagnet, local currents that flow in planes perpendicular to the magnetic lines of force are induced within the material. These local currents are called eddy currents. The associated fields oppose the domain-wall motion producing the flux varying with angular frequency change. In a magnetic field

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, the resulting power loss may be expressed in terms of the lag between impressed field and induction change. If both and vary with time as , such a lag is expressed mathematically by introducing a complex permeability with being the phase angle between and . Since is a measure of the lag, which in turn is is called the magnetic directly related to the power loss, loss tangent. If one assumes a homogeneous permeability throughout the material in the calculation of eddy-current losses, the calculated losses are always somewhat smaller than the measured losses. The discrepancy gets worse the larger the spacing between domain walls compared with the small dimension of the specimen perpendicular to the lines of magnetic flux. This is to be expected since the permeability is not at all homogeneous throughout the material, but is localized to the vicinity of the moving domain walls. This discrepancy is known as the eddycurrent anomaly. As an illustration of the order of magnitude of this effect, the special case of eddy currents in a cylindrical rod of length , radius , will be considered. In the extreme of flux change due to domain rotation, the assumption of homogenous permeability is correct. In this approximation, the eddy currents are assumed to flow tangentially about the rod so that the voltage induced at any radius is given by

The average power dissipation occurs at

. Also

where Here,

and

are the maximum and minimum values of . , , and . Therefore

The discrepancy between these cases is seen to be the factor . This means that calculations of eddy-current losses based on any model between these two extremes will have the same functional dependence on specimen dimensions, , and resistivity. They will differ in absolute magfrequency, nitude by less than a factor of 2. If the power dissipated by eddy currents about the expanding , the power cylindrical wall is set equal to 2 released by magnetization change in the effective driving field , the reciprocal radial velocity of the domain wall is calculated as

where

if the varying enclosed flux is given by . In Gaussian units, the power dissipated due to a current is therefore

The fields and refer, respectively, to the externally applied field and a threshold field for domain-wall motion. Since is the effective driving force per unit area on the wall, 2 it is apparent that gives the damping per unit area of wall due to eddy currents. The complete equation of motion for an expanding 180 cylindrical wall would be

where is the volume of the cylinder, is the resistivity, and is the velocity of light. The average power dissipated is then

The general form of this expression is typical for all such eddyis replaced by the small speccurrent calculations except that imen dimension perpendicular to the lines of magnetic flux. In the other extreme case, the flux change may be considered to be due to the motion of a single domain wall of radius concentric with the cylinder. In this case the eddy currents are and the induced voltage at confined to the region is [4]

where is the domain-wall mass per unit area. The problem as stated above has neglected acceleration and therefore assumed . It has also lumped the work done against elastic forces per unit area, , and the work done against domain-wall sur. These approxiface tension into an effective threshold field mations are valid provided large, irreversible wall motions occur and the inertial term is much smaller than the damping term. The justification for the latter condition is given in Section IV, where another contribution to , the relaxation contribution , is discussed. The former condition arises because the elastic forces dominate only while a wall is restricted to reversible motions within a potential-energy well about some lattice imperfection. is usually the It should be noted in passing that although is the dominant damping factor in metallic ferromagnetics, dominant damping factor where laminations of less than 25 m thickness or high-resistivity ferrites are used. B. Skin Effect

where power dissipated is

is the saturation induction. Again, the

The above discussion of eddy currents assumes that the external field penetrates the entire ferromagnet so that flux change is occurring in the interior as well as the exterior portions of the specimen. This assumption is valid for the thin sheets or wires that are customarily used in transformers or metallic-tape cores that are designed to reduce eddy-current effects. In bulk metals, however, the assumption of a homogeneous permeability is

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completely inadequate. In these materials, the eddy currents shield the interior from the external driving fields so that the amplitude of the flux change decreases and the phase angle increases with penetration depth. A calculation of the penetration depth follows directly from the Maxwell equations for sinusoidally varying fields:
Fig. 6. Equivalent circuit for calculation of effective dielectric constants in ferrites.

These equations may be combined in the usual way to give the wave equation

where and are, respectively, the absolute values of the and the permeability . permittivity The ohmic and displacement currents are seen to both appear in are the total electric loss angle the permittivity. Here, and and magnetic loss angle, respectively. If a plane electromagnetic imwave propagating in the direction with magnetic field pinges normally upon the plane surface of an isotropic medium, then

where the propagation constant is and is known as the skin depth. The power dissipated by eddy currents is equivalent to that lost by total effective eddy currents in a dc resistance of a skin of thickness . At , the penetrating field is of its value at the surface. If this solution attenuated to is substituted into the wave equation, the skin depth is given by

For metals the contributions of the dielectric constants are negligible compared to those of the conductivity , and . If magnetic losses are negligible , the usual relationship for skin depth and wavelength follow:

In metals of high conductivity, is extremely small. In ferrites, however, may be more than 10 times smaller. These materials are therefore useful at microwave frequencies. However, magnetic losses are not negligible in those instances. Control of the magnetic losses in these materials is an area of current concern in many laboratories. These losses are discussed in Section IV. C. Cavity Resonance During the design of a massive ferrite core composed of fitted brick-shaped pieces with cross-sectional area 2.5 1.25 cm to be used in the lower megacycle region, Brockman, Dowling, and Steneck [5] discovered that the initial permeability of the bricks

decreased rapidly to a very low value at about 2 MHz. This frequency is much lower than would be expected from previously measured losses in ferrites. It was pointed out above that the wavelength of an electromagnetic wave within a material is inversely proportional to . If the effective dielectric constant is large, the wavelength may be small enough to be comparable with the dimensions of the sample. A dimensional resonance can then occur in which standing waves tend to be set up within the material and a greater amount of energy is transferred from the electromagnetic wave to the magnetic lattice. This resonance of en, ergy transfer is typically reflected in a resonance peak for the imaginary part of the effective permeability, and a comple. The resonance is similarly reflected mentary dispersion in in the effective dielectric constant. Two methods have successfully been used to shift the resonance frequency to higher values: 1) the use of blocks of smaller dimension and 2) the application of a dc field to reduce . The elimination of this effect is important in studies of ferromagnetic resonance. The ferrites investigated by Brockman, Dowling, and Steneck had a certain content of ferrous ions. If ferric and ferrous ions are randomly distributed on the same type of lattice site, electrical conductivity is enhanced because of the ease of electron transfer between Fe and Fe . To understand better the origin of the high dielectric constants, Koops [6] investigated nickelzinc ferrites prepared under different oxidizing conditions to vary the conductivity from 10 to 10 ( cm) . It was found that a high dielectric constant (as high as 10 ) occurs with a higher conductivity. Further dispersions in the dielectric constant and resistivity were observed at high frequencies: above 9300 MHz the dielectric constants of all ferrites decrease from the 12 to 15 range to below 10. The high values of dielectric constant and resistivity also decrease with increasing electric field strength. The physical origin of these effects is somewhat obscure. An equivalent circuit that can account for the dispersions and also has a physical interpretation is shown in Fig. 6. It is supposed that a polycrystalline, sintered ferrite consists of large regions and of Fig. 6) sepawith relatively large conductivity ( rated by thin layers (the grain boundaries) of a relatively poor ). conductor ( IV. RELAXATION PROCESSES A. Phenomenological Equation If the thermal equilibrium of a magnetic system is suddenly altered by some external force, the reestablishment of a thermal equilibrium of this system is governed by relaxation processes. Aside from an inertial moment, the interactions that modify the

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immediate response of the atomic magnetic moments to an impressed force can only be interactions of these atomic moments with themselves or with the lattice. Since the atomic moment is associated with the electron spin of the atom, these processes may be described as either spinspin relaxations or spinlattice relaxations, respectively. The precise interaction mechanisms that are responsible for the magnetic-relaxation processes are not completely understood. A brief summary of present theory is given in Section V. Although a quantitative explanation of the relaxation effects that are observed must await a better understanding of the detailed interaction mechanisms, the qualitative features of these effects may be described by a phenomenological equation subject to a torque imposed of motion of the magnetization by an external field : (1) is the magnetomechanical ratio . This where equation follows directly from equating the rate of change of anreduced by a frictional gular momentum to the torque term that is directed to oppose the direction of motion. The arbitrary parameter must have dimensions s and is therefore called the relaxation frequency. This equation, first proposed by Landau and Lifshitz [7] in 1935, does not attempt to differentiate between spinspin and spinlattice processes. Since several physical processes may simultaneously contribute to the relaxation frequency , it is extremely dangerous to assign a measured value of to any actual physical process. Other phenomenological equations have been suggested. One such formalism, adopted by Bloembergen [8] from Blochs [9] original description of nuclear magnetic resonance, attempts to separate the spinspin and spinlattice interactions by the and . introduction of two relaxation frequencies, However it, with all other phenomenological equations, is subject to the same major limitation: it cannot give any details of the physics of the relaxation processes themselves. Since the LandauLifshitz formalism can be easily adapted to describe both domain-wall and domain-rotation processes, it is used in this descriptive summary. B. Domain-Wall Damping 1) Flux-Reversal: As was pointed out in Section III, the equation of motion of a cylindrical 180 domain wall may be expressed as (2) is composed of a where the damping coefficient as well as the eddy-current contriburelaxation contribution tion . If large, irreversible flux reversals take place, an equation for cylindrical walls is probably most appropriate as it describes nucleation and/or growth of many ellipsoidal domains of reverse magnetization with large eccentricity. If initial-permeability measurements are made, the domain-wall configuration is more complicated and a plane-wall equation is a sufficiently satisfactory representation: (2 )

The factor 2 on the right-hand side of the equation is valid only for 180 walls. Any average value must be between 2 and 1, the factor for 90 walls. Whatever the equation used, both and can be expressed in terms of measurable physical constants through the phenomenological LandauLifshitz equation. To do this, use is made of a concept introduced by Becker [10] in 1951. Becker showed that domain-wall velocity can be translated directly into the precessional velocity of the atomic moments inside the moving wall. The precessional velocity can be imagined which is perpendicular to the wall. The total due to a field , field responsible for wall motion is, therefore, is the component of the applied field parallel to the where wall. The precessional velocity of the spins can then be shown from (1) to be (3) where

and the proportionality constant follows from the LandauLifshitz equation with the displacement variable or . The kinetic energy of the wall is the difference in the energy of a domain wall in motion and at rest

The integral can be shown proportional to through use of (3) and a calculation of the domain-wall energy . It follows that the mass per unit area of wall per unit area , where is the exchange parameter is defined in Section II. In typical materials, where g/cm , the inertial term in the equation of wall motion is much smaller than the damping term and may be neglected. Only in high-resistivity ferrites driven at frequencies above 10 MHz does the inertial term have a measurable effect. From the LandauLifshitz equation it also follows that the power dissipated by the motion of the wall is

where is the wall area. If inertia is neglected and the elastic terms are lumped into an effective threshold field for irreversible wall motion, this power , the power supdissipation can be equated to 2 if is the plied by the effective applied field volume of the growing domain bounded by the moving wall. It follows that for walls experiencing large, irreversible motions (4) where

This relaxation damping is extremely important for pulse-circuit applications. It not only limits the speed of flux reversal, it also contributes a residual energy dissipation per unit volume

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Fig. 7.

Switching characteristics of metals and ferrites.

per half cycle , where is the largest distance any wall moves in the flux-reversal time . In coincident-current memory . But in a flux-reelements, driving fields are limited to versal process involving irreversible domain-wall motion

and

Typical plots illustrating this last equation are shown in Fig. 7. The contribution to from alone is large enough that if small s), must be large values of are desired ( enough to produce considerable hysteresis loss. Heating due to hysteresis and relaxation losses becomes the major factor limiting ultimate repetition frequencies for ferrite switching and memory components. 2) Domain-Wall Resonance: The frequency variation of the domain-wall contribution to the initial permeability also follows directly from the equation of motion of a domain wall. If the driving field for the plane-wall equation is , the form of the equation is immediately seen to be equivalent to that for forced harmonic motion or a harmonically driven LCR circuit. If is an average domain size, the , domain-wall magnetic susceptibility is given by . The steady-state for from (2 ) then where gives

a relaxation phenomenon is observed. Ideally the half-width of the resonant peak is . Because many walls contribute to the resonance, however, the resonant linewidth is inhomogeneously broadened to a considerable extent. Rado and his co-workers [11] have observed a resonance at 50 MHz in the initial permeability of a Ferramic A (4514321 percent FeMgMnCaZn ferrite, remainder presumably oxygen) that appears attributable to domain-wall motion. Observations of initial permeability by other workers on other materials give no unambiguous domain-wall resonance. Interpretation of the measurements is difficult because there is a domain-rotation contribution to the initial permeability that also has a resonance. The relative contributions of the two effects are not always easy to separate. They vary markedly with composition and processing. An experimental technique for determining the relative contributions of the two effects has recently been worked out by Grimes [12]. 3) Amplitude-Permeability Dispersion: The domain-wall contributions to the initial permeability discussed above are due to reversible wall motions. Using a maximum driving field Oe, Went and Wijn [13] observed a dispersion of the in manganese-ferrous amplitude permeability ferrite and nickelzinc ferrite. This dispersion can be satisfactorily accounted for by the damping of the irreversible wall motions. C. Ferromagnetic (Rotational) Resonance 1) Resonance Frequency: The electrons whose spins contribute to the net magnetic moment of the magnetic atoms also possess an angular momentum. If a torque is exerted on the magnetic moment by an external field , the moment begins to precess about the direction of the field in much the same manner as a spinning top precesses about the vertical under the influence of the gravitational field. The natural frequency for this rotation is the well-known Larmor frequency

where is the spectroscopic splitting factor and is called the gyromagnetic ratio. (For a discussion of the difference between the magneto-mechanical ratio and the gyromagnetic ratio , see [14] and [15].) This frequency condition is derived directly from the simple equation of motion (damping neglected) (5) If an atomic moment is aligned in a strong static field, a precessional motion is induced. If a small ac field is superimposed at right angles, the moment experiences a torque that increases its angle with the field. As the frequency of the ac field goes through the Larmor frequency, resonance occurs and energy is absorbed. In the calculation of this resonant field, care must be demagnetizing and effective anisotropy taken to include in fields as well as the applied static field [16]. One interesting contribution to this effective field occurs when the ac field is parallel to a 180 wall [17]. In this case the spins in the two adjacent domains precess in such a phase relation that they have simultaneous components toward or away from their common boundary (see Fig. 8). The internal which demagnetizing fields that result contribute a term to

with resonance frequency , where is the static value of the susceptibility due , and . It is to domain-wall displacements, to be noted that the elastic coefficient can be associated with , whereas and are related to meaa measurement of surable constants as previously indicated. If is so small that , the resonance frequency becomes imaginary and

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Fig. 8. Magnetic poles induced on 180 domain walls by an ac field (a) perpendicular and (b) parallel to the walls.

important. In most practical cases this problem can be formulated in terms of the phenomenological LandauLifshitz equation (1). If a damping term is added to the simple equation of angular motion (5), the resonant frequency is shifted slightly away from the Larmor frequency for a free atom, and there is a natural linewidth of the resonance absorption. This shift and linewidth can be expressed [18], [19] in terms of the relaxation frequency . , the procedure is to assume a time deIf the static field is of the and components of and in pendence the LandauLifshitz equation. An expression for and, therefore, and , follows. Since the demagnetizing fields and the effective anisotropy fields enter into these expres, the effective field inside the material, there sions through is no shape-independent plot for and . For spherical samples or samples of infinite size, the resonant frequency is

may be as high as . This effect is important, of course, only if the static applied field is so small that domain walls are present in the material. If a small ac signal of increasing frequency is applied to a demagnetized specimen, a resonance in the rotational contribumay tion to the imaginary part of the initial permeability be observed. This resonance is the result of a precession of the atomic moments about the directions of the internal magnetic field. In the experiments of Rado on Ferramic , the resand were resolved. This is not in general the onances in case. Experimentally the resonance in initial permeability is not sharp. Instead of a single resonance peak, the losses extend over a frequency range. The additional losses may be attributed to the effects of the magnetic-domain structure that is present in the demagnetized material. The domain structure in a demagnetized specimen is nearly always extremely complex. This means that there are contributions to the local internal fields from do. With such main-wall structure which may vary from 0 to a large variation in effective internal field strength from region to region in the material, there is a correspondingly wide variation in local resonant frequency, and the resonance is smeared out. These effects are important in low-frequency microwave devices. In the microwave application, the frequency is kept constant and the static field strength is varied to produce resonance. With small applied fields, domain walls exist in the material. The demagnetizing fields associated with the poles induced at the domain walls by the ac field may be sufficient to cause resonance in some regions of the material even though the applied field is low. This effect gives rise to large losses at low applied fields that persist until the applied field is large enough to remove most of the walls. These are usually referred to as low-field losses. In low-frequency ( 100 MHz) devices, the resonance field strength is relatively small. In these devices the walls may not be removed before the influence of resonance in the applied plus anisotropy fields alone is felt. This problem makes the construction of low-frequency devices difficult. Current ferrites for low-frequency applications are being designed in order to reduce these effects. with a small value of 2) Resonance Linewidth: In most microwave devices using magnetic insulators to give components with a nonreciprocal character, the width of the spin-resonance absorption line is

where

and the half-amplitude linewidth is Although the actual resonance line measured on polycrystalline samples is broadened by the variations of effective anisotropy from grain to grain and about impurity centers, resonance linewidths of well-annealed, spherical single crystals do give a measure both of the magnetocrystalline anisotropy constants and the LandauLifshitz relaxation frequency . As was pointed out earlier, the latter value is of little fundamental significance so long as it is not a measure of any specifically known physical mechanism. V. THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS Since the linewidth problem, or the damping phenomenologically expressed by the LandauLifshitz equation, has no complete theoretical explanation, it has recently been the object of considerable research. In a few specific cases it has been possible to identify a definite mechanism that contributes at least in part to the observed linewidth. These mechanisms are all either spinlattice or spinspin interactions. A. SpinLattice Interactions The spinlattice interactions include those between the system of atomic moments and the vibrations of the crystal lattice and those between the atomic moments and the conduction electrons. 1) Interactions of Spin Wave With Phonons: A calculation of the spinlattice relaxation time characterizing the exchange of energy between the system of spin waves and the system of lattice vibrations has been made with the methods of quantum field theory. These calculations start from the standard phenomenological, two-constant equation for the magnetostrictive contribution to the free energy, the magnetostriction representing the magnetoelastic interaction of the magnetization

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3407

with the lattice. The direct interaction between the spin system, in a mode of uniform precession, and the lattice is found to s. The be very small, leading to a relaxation time 10 observed relaxation times are 10 s. This discrepancy may be accounted for by spinorbit, orbitlattice interactions. 2) SpinLattice Interactions via Conduction Electrons in Semiconductors: Wijn and van der Heide [20], working with iron-rich ferrites, have measured the initial permeability and as a determined the magnetic-loss factor function of temperature for various frequencies. They observed a maximum that shifted to higher temperatures with higher frequencies. Such a relationship is characteristic of a relaxation phenomenon with relaxation time

where the heat of activation is approximated by an activation and is the Boltzmann gas constant. Except in the energy immediate vicinity of the Curie temperature, the entropy will not contribute significantly to the heat of activation. The relaxation phenomenon may be expressed by the basic equation

where is the relaxation time for with constant , is the with constant , and is the relaxed relaxation time for permeability. These definitions follow at once if, respectively, and are substituted into the above equation. If a periodic field is impressed on a magnetic material , , the above such that equation gives

For small

and

Yager, Galt, and Merritt [21], working with single crystals of ferrous-nickel ferrite, have measured the resonance linewidth and determined as a function of temperature. They also determined an activation energy in good agreement with that for electrons found from dc resistivity measurements. Although these experiments indicate that there can be a considerable contribution to the relaxation frequency due to an interaction between the atomic moments and the conduction electrons in ferrites containing both ferric and ferrous ions, it is not yet clear just what it is that relaxes when the electrons redistribute themselves. This effect is reduced, of course, by the elimination of the ferrous ions. 3) SpinLattice Interactions via Conduction Electrons in Metals: If an electromagnetic field penetrates a ferromagnetic metal, the phase angle between the electromagnetic field and the induced RF component of the magnetization vector varies with depth of penetration. This variation is due to the eddy currents that tend to concentrate at the surface of the material . If the skin depth is within a skin depth small (experimentally obtained by choosing a material with with penetration large ), the variation of the orientation of can be made relatively large so that there exists a measurable exchange torque tending to orient neighboring spins parallel. This and, exchange torque is capable of modifying the motion of therefore, the nature of the ferromagnetic resonance. Ament and Rado [22] have calculated the linewidth to be expected from in the usual LandauLifshitz this interaction by adding to , where equation an exchange field is the usual exchange parameter discussed in Section II. In the special case where this effect is large compared to the damping introduced through the relaxation frequency , the agreement between experiment and theory is satisfactory. B. SpinSpin Interactions In nonmetallic materials of high resistivity (ferrites with low ferrous content, for example), there are no conduction electrons to dissipate energy. Since the spin-phonon interactions are too weak to give the observed linewidths of 50 Oe (relaxation times 10 s), there must be at least one other source of line broadening. A possible source is semicovalent exchange, which involves transfer of two electrons from an oxygen, one each, to the d-state manifolds of the interacting spins. 1) DipoleDipole Interactions: The ordinary exchange interaction that aligns neighboring spins parallel (or antiparallel) to one another cannot cause any broadening of the resonance is always parline since the Weiss molecular field so that the torque must allel to the magnetization vanish. However, there are dipoledipole interactions between similar spins situated at the sites of a regular lattice that can give rise to an intrinsic resonance linewidth. These calculations [23] predict a strongly temperature-dependent linewidth that goes to zero at the absolute zero of temperature. Well below the Curie point the experimental linewidths tend to increase slightly as the temperature is lowered, suggesting strongly that a finite linewidth remains even at absolute zero. Attempts to amend the original calculations [24] to give a finite linewidth at absolute zero have been challenged [25]. A possible answer [23] to this dilemma lies in the effect of magnetic inhomogeneities that gen-

(6) where

and It follows that is a maximum if . Therefore, at for which a given temperature , there will be a frequency is a maximum and

The activation energy can therefore be determined from the versus , where is the temperature slope of the line is a maximum for a given . at which Wijn and van der Heide measured activation energies varying from 0.41 eV for a nickelzinc ferrite with resistivity 10 cm. These activation energies were found to determined from dc correspond to the activation energy on the same resistivity measurements materials.

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erally occur in the experimental materials. A microscopically inhomogeneous distribution of two kinds of magnetic ions on the octahedral sites of a ferrospinel, for example, leads to a variation of the dipolar forces between neighboring ions. This variation predicts a finite linewidth at the absolute zero of temperature. 2) Interactions of Spin Waves With Spin Waves: Recent studies of ferromagnetic resonance at high levels of signal power by Anderson and Suhl [25] caused these workers to suspect that the spin-wave spectrum should be modified when considering a finite magnetic body. Clogston et al. [26] have recently shown that in a finite medium, there exists a degenwith many spin waves of large eracy of the spin wave value. The spinspin interactions due to the interactions of the degenerate spin waves can give rise to a linewidth of the observed order of magnitude since the spin waves of higher value can transfer considerable energy to the lattice. Physically this degeneracy arises from the fact that the effeccontains demagnetizing-field contributions of the tive field , where and are demagnetizing facform tors corresponding, respectively, to the static-field direction and to all directions perpendicular to the static field. These contributions depress the spin-wave spectrum from that for the inficorresponding to lies at the nite medium in which . In a fivery bottom. In an infinite medium, remains roughly the same for all spin waves nite medium, is rapidly reduced for spin waves of large except at whereas the surface of the sample, neighboring regions of opposite polarity being induced on the perpendicular surfaces by the spin . Consequently the short-wavelength specwaves with trum (large ) is depressed from the infinite-medium case by a , and the degengreater amount than the spin wave for eracy follows. In brief, line broadening occurs because of inhomogeneous internal fields. For important reviews not specifically referred to in the text, see [27][29] REFERENCES
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] C. P. Steinmetz, Trans. Amer. Inst. Electr. Eng., vol. 9, p. 3, 1892. N. Menyuk and J. B. Goodenough, J. Appl. Phys., vol. 26, p. 8, 1955. J. B. Goodenough, Phys. Rev., vol. 95, p. 917, 1954. H. J. Williams, W. Shockley, and C. Kittel, Phys. Rev., vol. 80, p. 1090, 1950. F. G. Brockman, P. H. Dowling, and W. G. Steneck, Phys. Rev., vol. 77, p. 85, 1950. C. G. Koops, Phys. Rev., vol. 83, p. 121, 1951. L. Landau and E. Lifshitz, Physik Z. Sowjetunion, vol. 8, p. 153, 1935. N. Bloembergen, Phys. Rev., vol. 78, p. 572, 1950. F. Bloch, Phys. Rev., vol. 70, p. 460, 1946. R. Becker, J. Phys. Radium, vol. 12, p. 332, 1951. G. T. Rado, R. W. Wright, W. H. Emerson, and A. Terris, Phys. Rev., vol. 88, p. 909, 1952. D. M. Grimes, Reversible susceptibility in ferromagnets, Electronic Defense Group, Dept. Electrical Engineering, Univ. Michigan, Tech. Rep. 64, Apr. 1956. See also D. M. Grimes and D. W. Martin, Phys. Rev., vol. 96, p. 889, 1954. J. J. Went and H. P. J. Wijn, Phys. Rev., vol. 82, p. 269, 1951; Physica, vol. 17, p. 976, 1951.

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J. H. Van Vleck, Phys. Rev., vol. 78, p. 266, 1950. C. Kittel, Phys. Rev., vol. 76, p. 743, 1949. C. Kittel, Phys. Rev., vol. 73, p. 155, 1948. D. Polder and J. Smit, Rev. Mod. Phys., vol. 25, p. 89, 1953. W. A. Yager, J. K. Galt, F. R. Merritt, and E. A. Wood, Phys. Rev., vol. 80, p. 744, 1950. C. Kittel and E. Abrahams, Rev. Mod. Phys., vol. 25, p. 233, 1953. H. P. J. Wijn and H. van der Heide, Rev. Mod. Phys., vol. 25, p. 98, 1953. W. A. Yager, J. K. Galt, and F. R. Merritt, Phys. Rev., vol. 99, p. 1203, 1955. W. S. Ament and G. T. Rado, Phys. Rev., vol. 97, p. 1558, 1955. F. Keffer, Phys. Rev., vol. 88, p. 686, 1952. N. Bloembergen and S. Wang, Phys. Rev., vol. 93, p. 72, 1954. P. W. Anderson and H. Suhl, Phys. Rev., vol. 100, p. 1789, 1955. A. M. Clogston, H. Suhl, L. R. Walker, and P. W. Anderson, Phys. Rev., vol. 101, p. 903, 1956. C. Kittel, Physical theory of ferromagnetic domains, Rev. Mod. Phys., vol. 21, pp. 541583, 1949. J. Smit and H. P. J. Wijn, Physical properties of ferrites, Adv. Electron. Electron Phys., vol. 6, pp. 69136, 1954. E. Abrahams, Relaxation processes in ferromagnetism, Adv. Electron. Electron Phys., vol. 6, pp. 4768, 1954.

[13]

John B. Goodenough was born in Jena, Germany, on July 25, 1922. He received the A.B. degree in mathematics from Yale University, New Haven, CT, in 1943, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, in 1951 and 1952, respectively. Prior to graduate study, during World War II, he served in the U.S. Air Force as a meteorologist. He came to the Massachusetts Institute of Technologys Lincoln Laboratory in 1952. His initial assignment was with a small group charged with the development of the square-loop ferrite cores to be used in the coincident-current magnetic memory of the early digital computer. Following the successful completion of that project, he turned to studies of cooperative orbital ordering on transition-metal atoms in solids, the interatomic spinspin exchange interactions, and the complex long-range magnetic ordering resulting from competitive interatomic exchange interactions. These studies were summarized in his book, Magnetism and the Chemical Bond, published in 1963. In the 1960s, he concentrated on the transition from localized to itinerant electronic behavior. That work was the subject of his book, Les Oxydes des Mtaux de Transition, published in 1973 as a translation of his review article, Metallic Oxides. He is the author or coauthor of more than 500 papers and over 70 book chapters. In 1976, he became Professor and Head of the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, University of Oxford, Oxford, U.K. While he was at Oxford, he developed the layered Li CoO and spinel Li Mn O cathodes for secondary Li-ion batteries used in cell telephones and laptop computers. In 1986, he took up the Virginia H. Cockrell Centennial Chair of Engineering at The University of Texas, Austin. The discovery of high-critical-temperature superconductivity by Bednorz and Mller brought him back to his study of the transition from localized to itinerant electronic behavior in transition-metal oxides. He has since demonstrated, with Jianshi Zhou, that the first-order character of this transition leads to phase and bond-length fluctuations that give rise to a variety of unusual physical properties. He also continued with the development of energy materials. These include the olivine Li FePO cathode material under commercial development for Li-ion batteries as well as solid oxide fuel cells based on Sr- and Mg-doped LaGaO as the electrolyte. The arrival of his 80th birthday has not diminished his enthusiasm over the design and discovery of new properties and uses of the transition-metal oxides. Prof. Goodenough is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, LAcademie des Sciences de LInstitut de France, the U.K. Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Physical Society of Japan. He is a foreign associate of the Indian Academy of Science. He was awarded the 2001 Japan Prize by the Science and Technology Foundation of Japan for the discovery of environmentally benign electrode materials for high-energy-density rechargeable lithium batteries.