Abstract
AT Prof. W. Gerlach's suggestion I have recently investigated the behaviour of the magnetic susceptibility of bismuth when measured in the form of thin films. A modified form of the Faraday method was employed, the measuring system consisting of a flat cross with four equal arms about 15 mm. long and 5 mm. wide, the arms being set at about 90° to one another. This system was constructed of glass about 0.1 mm. thick. A fine glass wire through the centre of the cross and perpendicular to its plane carried a small galvanometer mirror; the system was suspended from a torsion head by means of a fine quartz fibre and was thus free to turn about the glass wire as axis. The cross hung in an inhomogeneous, but symmetrical, magnetic field formed by two 60° wedge-shaped pole pieces such that each pole piece occupied the space between two adjacent arms of the cross. The plane of the cross was horizontal and parallel to the lines of force, the centre of the cross and field system being coincident. The gap between the pole pieces was about 10 mm. In the magnetic field the cross would take up a very definite position of equilibrium and this point was made the zero point of the system when no field was acting. A film of bismuth was now deposited on one long arm of the cross (that is, about 30 mm. long) thus upsetting the equilibrium and causing the system to be deflected, which in turn was brought back to its initial zero position by means of the torsion head, the angle of deflection being determined by a telescope and scale in the usual way.
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References
Vaidyanathan, Ind. J. Phys., 5, 569; 1930.
Rao, ibid., 6, 241; 1931.
Mathur and Varma, ibid., 6, 181; 1931.
Seemann and Kussmann, Naturwiss., 19, 309; 1931.
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LANE, C. Diamagnetism of Thin Films of Bismuth. Nature 130, 999 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130999a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130999a0
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