Fully understanding the performance of nanocrystalline ternary Pr-Fe-B alloys with three typical phase constitutions

• Published in: Journal of magnetism and magnetic materials 2022-08, Vol.555, p.169374, Article 169374
• Main Authors: Zhou, Bang, Fan, Wenbing, Liao, Xuefeng, He, Jiayi, Yu, Hongya, Liu, Zhongwu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Alloys; Coercivity; Corrosion; Corrosion prevention; Corrosion resistance; Cryogenic temperature; Exchange interaction; Low temperature; Magnetic anisotropy; Magnetic properties; Magnetism; Melt spinning; Nanocomposites; Nanocrystalline; Neodymium base alloys; Nucleation; Optimization; Pr-Fe-B alloys
• ISSN: 0304-8853; 1873-4766
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jmmm.2022.169374

•All optimally quenched Pr-Fe-B alloys show single hard phase behavior.•The extremely high coercivity has been obtained at 100 K for Pr-Fe-B alloys.•Pr10F84B6 alloy exhibits better low temperature stability of remanence.•The RE-rich phase enhances the coercivity but sacrifice the corrosion resistance. Pr2Fe14B phase exhibit similar intrinsic magnetic properties as Nd2Fe14B with even higher magnetic anisotropy field. Here we investigated the magnetic properties, exchange interaction, and corrosion resistance of melt-spun ternary Pr-Fe-B alloys with three typical compositions including Pr10Fe84B6, Pr12Fe82B6, and Pr14Fe80B6. The hard magnetic Pr2Fe14B phase is present in all alloys, while the α-Fe and RE-rich phases are additionally present in Pr10Fe84B6 and Pr14Fe80B6 alloys, respectively. Under optimum wheel speed of melt spinning, uniform single-phase behavior has been obtained for all alloys, which gives optimal hard magnetic properties. Based on exchange interaction behavior analysis, the nanocomposite Pr10Fe84B6 alloy and single phase Pr12Fe82B6 alloy show more uniform reversal domain nucleation behavior during demagnetization process. Importantly, Pr-Fe-B alloys show significant advantages over Nd-Fe-B alloys at cryogenic temperature. The hard magnetic properties increase with reducing temperature and extremely high coercivity has been obtained at 100 K. Pr10Fe84B6 alloy exhibits not only better low temperature stability but also much higher corrosion resistance than the Pr14Fe80B6 and Pr12Fe82B6 alloys. The existence of soft phase can improve the anti-corrosion properties, while the RE-rich phase is not advantageous to corrosion resistance although it enhances the coercivity.