Spin Disorder vs. Spin Canting in Iron Oxide Nanoparticles

We propose to investigate the interparticle interaction effects on the magnetic surface structure of iron oxide nanoparticles with magnetic SANS. Using a set of samples with systematically varied interparticle interactions we are interested in analyzing the dependence of surface disorder on interparticle coupling. Full polarization analysis allows to distinguish between disorder and correlated spin canting and will facilitate quantitative analysis of the nanoparticle spin structure. This work will be the basis for assessing whether dipolar interactions in nanoparticle assemblies are a determining driving force to create correlated spin canting effects.