The Temperature Dependence of Magnetostriction in a Nickel Crystal

From a single crystal of nickel two specimens have been prepared in the form of prolate spheroids whose major axes lie along the [100] and [111] crystallographic directions. By the use of a special capacitance bridge arrangement described elsewhere, the longitudinal magnetostriction of each specimen has been measured over the temperature range -180°C to 360°C. The results obtained indicate that at low temperatures the magnetostriction below saturation varies with magnetization approximately in the manner given by the domain treatment suggested by Heisenberg, and that with increasing temperature there is a steady departure from the calculated values. The saturation magnetostriction was found to depend on temperature in a way which did not correspond to any known theory.