Investigation of the structural and magnetic properties of amorphous/nanocrystalline Fe70Ti10B20 (%at.) alloys by mechanical alloying

Abstract

In this study, amorphous/nanocrystalline Fe 70 Ti 10 B 20 (at.%) alloys were synthesized by using elemental Fe, Ti and B powders under argon gas atmosphere via mechanical alloying method. The powders were ball milled at 20:1 ball-to-powder ratio and 500 rpm rotating speed up to 70 h. The phase and morphological properties of the synthesized powders were examined by using X-Ray diffractometer and scanning electron microscope with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscope (SEM/EDX). The magnetic properties of powders were determined by vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) at room temperature in the range of 0-20 kOe. It is determined that after 2.5 h of milling, Ti and B are started to dissolve in Fe lattice and Fe(TiB) solid solutions formed. XRD analysis revealed that the amorphous structures were formed after 30h of milling and the crystallite size and lattice strain were found ~ 8.2 nm and 1.16%, respectively. SEM images indicated that the particles were mostly agglomerated and the particles size distribution was in the range of 10-48 μm. Magnetic measurements revealed that after 70 h of milling, the saturation magnetization (M s ) and the coercivity (H c ) was about 94 emu/g and 117 Oe.