The Magnetic and Structural Properties of the Alloys of Iron Produced by Mechanical Alloying

Abstract

In this study, nanostructured powders, (Fe65Co35) 100-x Crx with (x=0, 10), were synthesized by a high-energy mechanical grinding process, usually used to obtain soft magnetic systems. For this purpose, the metal elements Fe, Co and Cr, of respective purities 99.9, 99.8 and 99.5% and of average size less than one hundred microns, were milled at different times, ranging from 1 hour to 36 hours. In a second step, the nanopowders obtained were characterized by several techniques, namely X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) techniques. The analysis of the results obtained showed the complete formation of the (Fe65Co35) and (Fe65Co35) 90Cr10 phases from 12 hours of grinding. For (Fe65Co35), the remnant field Br and the saturation magnetization Ms have similar evolutions namely, a decrease between 8h and 24h, followed by an increase until the end of the grinding. In addition, the high values of Br and Hc suggest that this system is magnetically hard. The presence of chrome in the ternary (Fe65Co35) 90Cr10 amplifies the maximum value of Hc, while maintaining a similar behavior.