Thermal dependence of coercivity in soft magnetic nanocrystals

An important group of soft magnetic nanocrystals is that formed by alpha-Fe(Si) nanocrystals (around 10-nm grain size) embedded in a residual amorphous matrix. A simple phenomenological theory that takes into account the two-phase character based on the random anisotropy approximation has been developed. The percentage of crystallized material x is taken into account and a quantitative expression for the thermal dependence of coercivity, considering the two-phase character of the samples, has been obtained. The good fit between the experimental curves and the theoretical ones of nanocrystalline Fe73.5Si13.5B9Cu1Ta3 samples with different crystallized volume fraction is discussed. [S0163-1829(98)02125-0].