Magnetic Anisotropy Energy Distribution and Magnetization of CoPt Nanoparticles Encaged in Protein Shell

Magnetic properties of CoPt nanoparticles (average size = 2.1 nm) encapsulated in synthesized protein shell have been investigated with SQUID (Superconducting Quantum Interference Device) magnetometer and analyzed by the recently developed non-equilibrium magnetization calculation by our group [T. H. Lee et al., Phys. Rev. B 90, 184411 (2014)]. Field dependence of magnetization measured at 2 K was successfully analyzed with modified Langevin function. In addition, small hysteresis loops having the coercive field of 890 Oe were observed at 2 K. Temperature dependence of magnetization has been measured with zero field cooled (ZFC) and field cooled (FC) protocol with slightly modified sequence in accordance with non-equilibrium magnetization calculation. The analysis on the M vs. T data revealed that the anisotropy energy barrier distribution is found to be very different from the log-normal distribution found in a size distribution. Zero temperature coercive field and Bloch coefficient have also been extracted from the analysis and the validity of those values is checked.