Past exam of the MPhil in micro- and nanotechnology enterprise course of the University of Cambridge / 2021 / Paper 2 / Section A(ii) / 16 / i

For an isolated easy-axis ferromagnet undergoing coherent reversal, the ideal low-temperature loop is approximately rectangular, switching between $\pm M_s$ at $\pm H_c$. It has remanent Magnetization and a large response near switching. An ideal compensated antiferromagnet has essentially no remanence and a small, approximately reversible linear net Magnetization $M={\chi }_{\mathrm{AF}}H$ at fields far below its exchange/spin-flop scales. Strong antiferromagnetic exchange makes substantial canting costly, so its low-field magnetic susceptibility is small relative to the ferromagnet's unsaturated switching response.

This comparison does not say the ferromagnet has a larger differential slope at every field: on its saturated branches $dM/dH$ can also be small. Nor does it rule out spin-flop transitions at much larger fields, outside the sketched range. The original plot uses arbitrary normalized scales.