A NEUTRON POLARIZATION ANALYSIS STUDY OF CE2FE17 IN ITS PARAMAGNETIC PHASE

Spin-flip (paramagnetic) scattering and neutron depolarization studies were performed on Ce2Fe17 in its paramagnetic phase on the Dhruva neutron polarization analysis spectrometer. The absence of normal Q dependence of the scattered spin flip intensity shows that Ce2Fe17 is not a normal paramagnetic and there exist superparamagnetic clusters of sufficiently large dimensions (approximately 100 angstrom). The observed neutron depolarization gives an indication of the dynamics of these Ce2Fe17 superparamagnetic clusters.