Determination of the Mössbauer absorption cross section and reconstruction of hyperfine field distribution by the...

Determination of the Mössbauer absorption cross section, σ(E), and accurate reconstruction of the hyperfine field distributions of the invar alloy, Fe(64)Ni(36), by the maximum entropy method (MEM) is presented. The procedure consists of three steps: deconvolution of the Mössbauer spectra with the instrumental resolution function using MEM, nonlinear transformation of the deconvoluted spectrum into σ(E), and reconstruction of the hyperfine field distribution. In order to test the procedure of the deconvolution and correction for thickness effect, several simulated spectra with thickness parameter 1 < t < 50 and different values of Lorentzian FWHM of the source and absorber were analyzed. It is shown that the procedure of the deconvolution and extraction of σ(E) works well for spectra whose lines contain at least five experimental points per FWHM. Reconstructed distributions of hyperfine field parameters, based on the extracted Mössbauer cross section of the Fe-Ni invar alloy, measured with and without application of an external magnetic field, are discussed. The reconstruction has been made to test the earlier postulated non-collinear ferromagnetic state of invar without referring to any specific model in the analysis of the Mössbauer results. It is shown that marginal probability distribution of hyperfine magnetic field consists of the main maximum at about 28 T and a broad tail extending down to 5 T. Observed isomer shift of the main maximum is small and positive. The isomer shift decreases with magnetic field and attains negative values at the lowest fields. It is shown that the magnetic texture parameter does not depend on the hyperfine magnetic field. One thus concludes that in the invar Ni-Fe alloys, in contrast to some theoretical predictions, there is no evidence for different arrangements of the iron magnetic moments as a function of the magnetic hyperfine field.