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  • Open Access

Reduced vortex descriptors linking polycrystallinity in magnetic nanoparticles with polarized magnetic small-angle neutron scattering

Michael P. Adams1,2,*, Jonathan Leliaert3, Andreas Michels4, and Elizabeth M. Jefremovas4,5,†

  • *Contact author: michael.adams@mpsd.mpg.de
  • †Contact author: elizabeth.jefremovas@uni.lu
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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 043133 – Published 5 November, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/mhfg-6sjm

Abstract

Analytical vortex models reduce polarized magnetic small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) from nanoparticle ensembles to a small set of texture descriptors. In this work, we apply this reduction to micromagnetic simulations of polycrystalline iron oxide nanoflowers at a fixed particle size and examine how a controlled parametrization of multigrain disorder is reflected in the remanent descriptors. The particles are represented by explicit Voronoi microstructures, and intraparticle disorder is varied through the intergrain exchange coupling and anisotropy-axis coherence. Fitting each remanent magnetization state to a hyperbolic vortex model reveals a predominantly two-channel organization: The intergrain exchange coupling is associated mainly with the radial vortex profile, whereas the anisotropy-axis coherence is associated mainly with the orientational moment of the vortex-axis distribution. The normalized spin-flip SANS cross sections are accurately represented by independent fits of the analytical linear-vortex SANS expression obtained from the first-order expansion of the hyperbolic profile. The fitted orientational descriptor agrees closely with its independent real-space estimate, whereas the corresponding radial descriptors exhibit a strong global nonlinear relation. This separation identifies which information from the micromagnetic vortex textures is robustly retained by the reduced analytical representation.

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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 043133– Published 5 November, 2026
  • Received 18 August 2026
  • Accepted 23 October 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by Max Planck Society.

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