Strong dependence of ferrimagnetic properties on Na concentration in Na–K alloy clusters incorporated in low-silica X zeolite Original Research Article

Na concentration (x) dependence of ferrimagnetic properties is investigated for Na–K alloy clusters incorporated in low-silica X (LSX) zeolite. In the LSX zeolite, β-cages of inner diameter ≈7 Å are arranged in a diamond structure, and supercages of inner diameter ≈13 Å are formed among them. The used LSX zeolite contains xNa+ and (12−x)K+ cations per β-cage or supercage. Guest nK atoms are loaded into the zeolite, namely the loading density is given by n per β-cage. The samples at x=4 have been reported to show Néel’s N-type ferrimagnetism in the specific region of n. This ferrimagnetism is explained by the model of antiferromagnetic coupling between two non-equivalent magnetic sublattices of clusters, the ones in β-cages and the others in supercages. In the present study, the value of x is changed from 4 to 0. Ferrimagnetic properties are found to show strong x-dependence. A systematic increase in loading densities of ferrimagnetic region is clearly observed with decreasing x. A remarkable change in temperature dependence of spontaneous magnetization is observed depending on x. Na+ cations are known to be mainly distributed in β-cages. Hence, the decrease in Na concentration is proposed to change the electronic potential depth for clusters in β-cage, which leads to important differences in the interaction between electrons localized in β-cages and those in supercages.