SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF ADVANCED MAGNETIC MATERIALS

The work described in this grant report was focused mainly on the properties of novel magnetic intermetallics. In the first project, we synthesized several 2:17 intermetallic compounds, namely Nd{sub 2}Fe{sub 15}Si{sub 2}, Nd{sub 2}Fe{sub 15}Al{sub 2}, Nd{sub 2}Fe{sub 15}SiAl and Nd{sub 2}Fe{sub 15}SiMn, as well as several 1:12 intermetallic compounds, such as NdFe{sub 10}Si{sub 2}, NdFe{sub 10}Al{sub 2}, NdFe{sub 10}SiAl and NdFe{sub 10}MnAl. In the second project, seven compositions of Nd{sub x}Fe{sub 100-x-y}B{sub y} ribbons were prepared by a melt spinning method with Nd and B content increasing from 7.3 and 3.6 to 11 and 6, respectively. The alloys were annealed under optimized conditions to obtain a composite material consisting of the hard magnetic Nd{sub 2}Fe{sub 14}B and soft magnetic {alpha}-Fe phases, typical of a spring magnet structure. In the third project, intermetallic compounds of the type Zr{sub 1}Cr{sub 1}Fe{sub 1}T{sub 0.8} with T = Al, Co and Fe were subjected to hydrogenation. In the fourth project, we performed three crucial experiments. In the first experiment, we subjected a mixture of Fe{sub 3}O{sub 4} and Fe (80-20 wt %) to mechanochemical activation by high-energy ball milling, for time periods ranging from 0.5 to 14 hours. In the second experiment, we ball-milled Fe{sub 3}O{sub 4}:Co{sup 2+} (x = 0.1) for time intervals between 2.5 and 17.5 hours. Finally, we exposed a mixture of Fe{sub 3}O{sub 4} and Co (80-20 wt %) to mechanochemical activation for time periods ranging from 0.5 to 10 hours. In all cases, the structural and magnetic properties of the systems involved were elucidated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Moessbauer spectroscopy and hysteresis loop measurements. The four projects resulted in four papers, which were published in Intermetallics, IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, Journal of Materials Science Letters and Materials Chemistry and Physics. The contributions reveal for the first time in literature the effect of substitutions on the hyperfine magnetic field of neodymium-based intermetallics, the correlation between structure and magnetic properties in spring magnets, the unique effects induced by hydrogenation on the hyperfine parameters of iron-rich intermetallics and the characteristics of the ball milling process in systems containing magnetite