Saturated paramagnetic and ferromagnetic

[jackychenp]

Dear All,

I have a paramagnetic material, its magnetic moment will saturate at magnetic field of 30 T (all spins align in the field direction). So shall I treat the high field phase as a ferromagnetic phase when I do electronic calculations?

 

[M Quack]

Yes, I guess so.

The distinction is that for a "real" ferromagnet, you cross a phase boundary somewhere.

For a saturated paramagnet, the magnetization curve is completely smooth and continuous.

For electronic structure calculations you probably don't care if the moments are aligned because of an external magnetic field (para), or because of an internal exchange field (ferro).