Anisotropic nanocomposite Nd-Fe-B magnets produced by hot deformation with assistance of Nd-Cu

Uniaxial compressive deformation at elevated temperatures was applied to various Nd-lean Nd-Fe-B nanocomposite magnets. Particularly, influences of addition of eutectic Nd-Cu alloys having low melting points on texturing were investigated. X-ray diffraction and magnetic property measurements were carried out for the deformed samples to check whether texture is induced. A series of the experiments clearly demonstrated that no texturing occurs in the case of the alloys without any Nd-Cu alloy while textured magnets are successfully obtained when Nd-Cu is added. However, the texture obtained by the current attempt was not very strong. Detailed multi-scale electron microscopy revealed that the textured region was limited to where Nd was enriched and alpha-Fe phases disappeared. The strategy to obtain an ideal microstructure of nanocomposite magnet is discussed.