Magnetic shape-memory alloy

Magnetic field

Physics

Engineering

Nanocrystalline material

Composite material

Magnet

Nanotechnology

Nanostructure

Metallurgy

Materials science

Magnetic alloy

Annealing (glass)

Alloy

Magnetization

Magnetic anisotropy

Chemical engineering

Thermal stability

Quantum mechanics

Mechanical engineering

Journal of Alloys and Compounds

Fe-based alloys are an important soft magnetic material that plays a pivotal role in a variety of energy-related industrial applications, such as electric transformers, motors and converters. However, the trade-off between magnetic softness and saturation magnetization (Bs) has been hindering the development of next-generation Fe-based soft magnetic materials. In this work, we demonstrate a facile route to obtain nanostructured Fe-based alloy out of a marginal glass former, which exhibits a core-shell like nanostructure and a synergetic increase of Bs, magnetic permeability (μe) and hardness upon thermal annealing, giving rise to a unique combination of Bs > 1.83 T, μe ∼25000 and ultrahigh hardness of ∼15 GPa. In terms of the combined magnetic/mechanical properties, the nanostructured Fe-based alloy outperforms the variety of Fe-based soft magnetic alloys hitherto reported. Furthermore, compared to the existing high performance soft magnetic Fe-based nanocrystalline alloys, the core-shell like nanostructure in our Fe-based nanocrystalline alloy displays an excellent thermal stability, which offers a large time window which would facilitate materials processing for future large-scale industrial production.

High performance Fe-based nanocrystalline alloys with excellent thermal stability