A Study of Magnetic Properties of Solid Oxygen, Oxygen-Argon and Oxygen-Fluorine

To acquire information on the interaction between oxygen molecules in solid phase, studies have been carried out on the magnetic properties of solid oxygen, oxygen-argon and oxygen-fluorine. Review of the studies on the interaction between oxygen molecules is cited. Magnetic susceptibility was measured by the Faraday method as a function of temperature from 12 K to the melting point of them. Pure oxygen both in α and β phase indicates paramagnetism corresponding to long-range antiferromagnetic order. Oxygen -argon mixtures of 92~66 mol% oxygen content indicate large susceptibility corresponding to δ phase, which can be interpreted in terms of the cluster of oxygen molecules in trimer. Small paramagnetism was found for the oxygenfluorine mixture even as dilute as 10 mol% oxygen content, which may be due to the strong antiferromagnetic interaction. This can be interpreted in terms of super-exchange interaction between oxygen molecules via fluorine molecule.