Dimension reduction induced anisotropic magnetic thermal conductivity in hematite nanowire

Abstract

The thermophysical properties near the magnetic phase transition point is of great importance in the study of critical phenomenon. Low-dimensional materials are suggested to hold different thermophysical properties comparing to their bulk counterpart due to the dimension induced quantum confinement and anisotropy. In this work, we measured the thermal conductivity of $\alpha$-Fe$_2$O$_3$ nanowires along [110] direction (growing direction) with temperature from 100K to 150K and found a dip of thermal conductivity near the Morin temperature. We found the thermal conductivity near Morin temperature varies with the angle between magnetic field and [110] direction of nanowire. More specifically, an angular-dependent thermal conductivity is observed, due to the magnetic field induced movement of magnetic domain wall. The angle corresponding to the maximum of thermal conductivity varies near the Morin transition temperature, due to the different magnetic easy axis as suggested by our calculation based on magnetic anisotropy energy. This angular dependence of thermal conductivity indicates that the easy axis of $\alpha$-Fe$_2$O$_3$ nanowires is different from bulk $\alpha$-Fe$_2$O$_3$ due to the geometric anisotropy.