It is proposed that permanent magnets can be made of composite materials consisting of two suitably dispersed ferromagnetic and mutually exchange-coupled phases, one of which is hard magnetic in order to provide a high coercive field, while the other may be soft magnetic, just providing a high saturation J/sub s/, and should envelop the hard phase regions in order to prevent their corrosion. A general theoretical treatment of such systems shows that one may expect, besides a high energy product (BH)/sub max/, a reversible demagnetization curve (exchange-spring) and, in certain cases, an unusually high isotropic remanence ratio B/sub r//J/sub s/, while the required volume fraction of the hard phase may be very low, on the order of 10%. The technological realization of such materials is shown to be based on the principle that all phases involved must emerge from a common metastable matrix phase in order to be crystallographically coherent and consequently magnetically exchange coupled. >

The exchange-spring magnet: a new material principle for permanent magnets

Exchange-spring magnets are nanocomposites that are composed of magnetically hard and soft phases that interact by magnetic exchange coupling. Such systems are promising for advanced permanent magnetic applications, as they have a large energy product--the combination of permanent magnet field and magnetization--compared to traditional, single-phase materials. Conventional techniques, including melt-spinning, mechanical milling and sputtering, have been explored to prepare exchange-spring magnets. However, the requirement that both the hard and soft phases are controlled at the nanometre scale, to ensure efficient exchange coupling, has posed significant preparation challenges. Here we report the fabrication of exchange-coupled nanocomposites using nanoparticle self-assembly. In this approach, both FePt and Fe3O4 particles are incorporated as nanometre-scale building blocks into binary assemblies. Subsequent annealing converts the assembly into FePt-Fe3Pt nanocomposites, where FePt is a magnetically hard phase and Fe3Pt a soft phase. An optimum exchange coupling, and therefore an optimum energy product, can be obtained by independently tuning the size and composition of the individual building blocks. We have produced exchange-coupled isotropic FePt-Fe3Pt nanocomposites with an energy product of 20.1 MG Oe, which exceeds the theoretical limit of 13 MG Oe for non-exchange-coupled isotropic FePt by over 50 per cent.

Exchange-coupled nanocomposite magnets by nanoparticle self-assembly

This tutorial review summarizes the recent advances in the chemical synthesis and potential applications of monodisperse magnetic nanoparticles. After a brief introduction to nanomagnetism, the review focuses on recent developments in solution phase syntheses of monodisperse MFe2O4, Co, Fe, CoFe, FePt and SmCo5 nanoparticles. The review further outlines the surface, structural, and magnetic properties of these nanoparticles for biomedicine and magnetic energy storage applications.

Magnetic nanoparticles: synthesis, functionalization, and applications in bioimaging and magnetic energy storage

Magnetic Heusler alloys which undergo a martensitic transition display interesting functional properties. In the present review, we survey the magnetocaloric effects of Ni-Mn-based Heusler alloys and discuss their relation with the magnetic shape-memory and magnetic superelasticity reported in these materials. We show that all these effects are a consequence of a strong coupling between structure and magnetism which enables a magnetic field to rearrange martensitic variants as well as to provide the possibility to induce the martensitic transition. These two features are respectively controlled by the magnetic anisotropy of the martensitic phase and by the difference in magnetic moments between the structural phases. The relevance of each of these contributions to the magnetocaloric properties is analysed.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0953-8984/21/23/233201/pdf

Magnetocaloric effect and its relation to shape-memory properties in ferromagnetic Heusler alloys

TOPICAL REVIEW: Nanomagnetics

Meltspun permanent magnet materials containing Fe3B as the main phase

Ternary compounds based on the tetragonal ThMn 12 structure are formed when rare earth. elements (R) are combined with iron and elements M (M ≡ Si, Ti, V, Cr, Mo or W). A structure determination was made for NdFe 10 Mo 2 , showing that the molybdenum atoms occupy only one of the three available crystallographic sites in this structure type. Detailed investigations of the systems YFe 12 − x V x showed that there is a substantial range of solid solubility extending approximately from x = 1.5 to x = 3. Curie temperatures were determined for the two series YFe 10 M 2 and GdFez 10 M 2 and were found to depend strongly on the component M.

Some novel ternary ThMn12-type compounds

Magnetic properties of ternary rare-earth compounds of the type R2Fe14B

It was shown by X-ray diffraction that rare earth compounds of the type R2Fe17 can dissolve appreciable amounts of carbon up to x = 0.6 in R2Fe17Cx at 900 °C. The increase in the lattice constants is accompanied by a strong increase in Curie temperature. From a structure determination (R = 7%) it was found that the carbon atoms dissolve interstitially and occupy the 9e position in the Th2Zn17 structure type (R3m). This ternary carbide is present as the main phase when compounds of the type R2Fe14C are heated above their decomposition temperatures. The decomposition proceeds by means of a solid state transformation and the corresponding transformation temperatures Tt vary strongly with the R component. In several of the light rare earth systems Tt becomes rather low and makes an annealing treatment ineffective with regard to the formation of R2Fe14C phases. The magnetic properties of the R2Fe14C phases are compared with those of R2Fe14B. It is shown that the former follow the magnetic behaviour of the latter almost completely.

Formation and magnetic properties of the compounds R2Fe14C

We have studied the magnetic properties of a series of novel ternary compounds of the composition RFe 10 V 2 (R ≡ Nd, Sm, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Lu and Y) X-ray diffraction showed that these materials crystallize in the tetragonal ThMn 12 structure The Curie temperature falls into the range 483 to 616 K From high-field magnetic measurements made at 42 K on aligned powders it was derived that the iron sublattice anisotropy is about 4 T, while the rare earth sublattice anisotropy is comparatively low in most of the compounds studied

D.B. de Mooij

Papers

Meltspun permanent magnet materials containing Fe3B as the main phase

Some novel ternary ThMn12-type compounds

Magnetic properties of ternary rare-earth compounds of the type R2Fe14B

Formation and magnetic properties of the compounds R2Fe14C

Magnetic properties of a series of novel ternary intermetallics (RFe10V2)