Tetragonal Ce-based Ce-Sm(Fe, Co, Ti) sub(12) alloys for permanent magnets

Abundance and relatively low cost of Ce provide a great incentive for its use in rare-earth permanent magnets. It has been recently reported that the tetragonal Ce(Fe,Co,Ti)12 compounds may exhibit application-worthy intrinsic magnetic properties. In this work the effect of the alpha -Fe phase formation due to the evaporation of Sm during alloy fabrication has been studied, as a previous step in the attempt to convert the intrinsic magnetic properties into functional properties of a permanent magnet. Ce sub(0.5)Sm sub(0.5)Fe sub(9)Co sub(2)Ti alloys based on the ThMn12-type crystal structure have been synthesized via melt-spinning with different Sm content. Coercive fields between 2.8 and 1.4 kOe have been found for alpha -Fe phase contents between 8 and 46% in volume, showing the influence of the alpha -Fe phase on the coercivity and exchange coupling between the hard and soft phase. ( copyright 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)