Magnetostatic effects in the nucleation of rare earth ferromagnetic phases.

It has been reported that superheating, supercooling, and explosive kinetics coupled to other degrees of freedom occur at the ferromagnetic transitions of Er and Dy, and that metastable phases occur during the transition kinetics of Er. We explain these observations in terms of magnetostatic energy, which requires highly eccentric nuclei in the homogeneous nucleation of magnetic transitions in heavy rare earths. The magnetostatics favor transitions through ferrimagnetic intermediaries. The unusual kinetics derive from effective spin lattice relaxation.