The change of moment with field and composition in Fe–V alloys

Fe-V alloys have been the subject of a detailed theoretical investigation using modern spin polarised density functional theory adapted to KKR-CPA theory for the electron structure of alloys. The polarised neutron measurements of the magneto-compositional correlations in Fe-V do not compare well with the theory and the neutron results do not extrapolate to the the bulk measurements of d<()over bar>/dc expected at zero scattering vector. As the neutron results are necessarily taken in high magnetic fields the variation of average magnetic moment <()over bar> has been measured as a function of the vanadium concentration c in fields up to 7 tesla for c = 0, 0.08, 0.12 and 0.19. The moment is found to be essentially independent of field and d (u) over bar /dc = - 3.60 mu (B)/at is the same for all fields. Thus polarised neutron measurements of the magneto-compositional and magnetic correlations should extrapolate to the appropriate zero field bulk quantities at zero scattering vector. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.