Relaxation Kinetics of the Microhardness of KDP Crystals after Their Exposure to a Magnetic Field

Abstract

It has been shown that potassium dihydrogen phosphate crystals change their microhardness reversibly after their exposure to a magnetic field of B = 0.8 or 1.2 T for t_m = 7–90 min. It has been found that the magnetic effect can be conveniently characterized by the quantity B²t_m, because the variation of the parameters conserving B²t_m=const does not change the result. At B²t_m < 10 T² min, the effect is almost absent. Above this threshold, the amplitude of changes in the microhardness increases and approaches a constant value of ~10% at B²t_m ≈ 19 T² min. The responses of samples of the same crystal from the faces of the prismatic and pyramidal growth sectors to exposure are different. In the former case, they soften; in the latter case, the hardening stage follows the softening stage. However, in both cases, the microhardness returns to the initial value. At B²t_m values from 19 to 37 T² min, the amplitudes and durations of the effect do not change, but in the narrow range of 37–43 T² min, the lifetime of the modified state increases sharply with transition to a new level: “sharp” peaks with a half-width of ~2 days are transformed to trapezoids with the width of the horizontal side of ~1–2 weeks. A physical scheme of the observed effects has been proposed.