iron 57 is a stable isotope of Fe that is used in Mossbauer spectroscopy and nuclear resonance vibrational spectroscopy. Its unique properties are useful for determining the chemical, structural, magnetic and time-dependent properties of materials.
57Fe has been studied for the use of hydrogen diffusion in metals and rare earth oxides, as well as for molecular beam epitaxy studies of magnetic domain thin film designs. 57Fe is also used to study phase changes and pinhole defects in rare earth metal oxides.
Research Methods
iron 57 is most commonly studied in Mossbauer spectroscopy, a versatile technique named after the Nobel prize-winning physicist Rudolph Mossbauer. During the spectroscopic procedure, a source of gamma rays is accelerated through a range of velocities.
The gamma rays emitted from the spectrometer reflect off atoms within a crystal lattice. If the atoms are sufficiently cooled, they can no longer recoil individually; instead, the energy is absorbed by the lattice as a whole.
This characteristic allows for the observation of a wide variety of resonance absorptions, resulting in detailed information on the vibrational and electronic states of the atoms. This information is highly useful in a number of areas of science, including physics, chemistry and biology.
Mossbauer Spectra
Fe-57 is widely studied in Mossbauer spectroscopy, which is a form of recoilless gamma ray spectroscopy (GRS). During GRS, a source of gamma radiation is accelerated through a range of VE and VS velocities to produce Doppler effects. The gamma rays are then scanned in a series, revealing the spectral features of the excited nuclear transitions.