Amorphous rare earth magnet powders

Gas atomization (GA) processing does not generally have a high enough cooling rate to produce the initial amorphous microstructure needed to obtain optimal magnetic properties in RE{sub 2}Fe{sub 14}B alloys. Phase separation and an underquenched microstructure result from detrimental {alpha}-Fe precipitation, and the resulting magnetic domain structure is very coarse. Additionally, there is a dramatic dependence of the magnetic properties on the cooling rate (and therefore the particle size) and the powders can be sensitive to environmental degradation. Alloy compositions designed just for GA (as opposed to melt spinning) are necessary to produce an amorphous structure that can be crystallized to result in a fine structure with magnetic properties which are independent of particle size. The addition of titanium and carbon to the melt has been found to change the solidification process sufficiently to result in an ``overquenched`` state in which most of the powder size fractions have an amorphous component. Crystallization with a brief heat treatment produces a structure which has improved magnetic properties, in part due to the ability to use compositions with higher Fe contents without {alpha}-Fe precipitation. Results from magnetometry, magnetic force microscopy, and x-ray analyses will be used to contrast the microstructure, domain structure, and magnetic properties of this new generation of amorphous powders with their multiphase predecessors