Local increase of the Curie temperature in Mn/Fe implanted Y3Fe5O12 (YIG)

Abstract The change in the Curie temperature of single crystalline garnet Y3Fe5O12 (YIG) sample due to lattice damage induced by ion implantation has been investigated in 57Fe emission Mossbauer Spectroscopy (eMS) following implantation of 57Mn (T½ = 1.5 min). The Mossbauer spectra analysis reveal high spin Fe3+ ions substituted on both the octahedral and the tetrahedral sites. Measurements in the temperature range 298 K–798 K show that average values of the magnetic hyperfine field are decreased by the implantation-induced damage on the local lattice structure of the YIG. The Curie temperature, however, is determined to be 651 ± 5 K, considerably higher than the value of bulk YIG (559 K). This is most likely due to lattice damage-induced changes on the spin configurations of YIG through a FeA-O-FeD distortion scheme.