Extension of the Bloch T3/2 Law to Magnetic Nanostructures: Bose-Einstein Condensation

We report a newly observed phenomenon, namely, the observation of a visible anomaly in the Bloch T^3/2 law for the temperature dependence of magnetization of nanostructured ferromagnets, for which we give a thermodynamic explanation. Our interpretation extends the Bloch law by introducing the system’s chemical potential and assumes a finite Bose-Einstein condensation temperature T_BE of the magnons. Our extension involves accounting for the possibility of a magnon or magnetic entropy term, leading to a magnon chemical potential (hitherto omitted in the traditional derivation) which varies with temperature. The result is a subtle upturn of the magnetization curves of ferromagnetic nanoparticles in the 10 to 50 K temperature range. Here we show experimental data for nanomaterials and an outline of the extended theory which includes T_BE.