Physical Properties of Magnetic Domain Switching in a Single Crystal of an Anti-Ferro Magnetic Medium Cr₂O₃

Abstract

The physical properties of a domain switching under an application of electric and magnetic fields are described, with respect to a single crystal of Cr₂O₃ which belongs in a magnetic point group 3 m. Major results obtained in this study are as follows : (1) experimental results on anisotropic tensor components of a magnetic susceptibility in the C_2O₃ single crystal are found to be in reasonable agreement with the theoretical result in the case of 3m, in which the non-diagonal elements xᵢj are zero and X₁₁＝X₂₂ is required. (2) A temperature dependence of a domain switching time τₛ of the used Cr₂O₃ single crystal follows to approximately 1.6×10¹⁷ exp (―9550/T). From the numerical value in the parenthesis, it appears that the used crystal has an average energy of domain walls corresponding to 0.86 eV. Further, it is concluded that an inversion probability in the domain switching in general depends on the Boltzmann factor.