Electromagnetic wave absorbing materials have been developed to reduce electromagnetic interference (EMI) for electronic devices in recent years. In this study, Fe-Si-B-Nb-Cu base amorphous strip was pulverized using a jet mill and an attritor and heat-treated to get flake-shaped nanocrystalline powders, and then the powders were mixed, cast and dried with dielectric powders and binders. As a result, the addition of powders improved the absorbing properties of the sheets noticeably compared with those of the sheets without dielectric materials. The sheet mixed with 2 wt% powder showed the best electromagnetic wave absorption, which was caused by the increase of the permittivity and the electric resistance due to the dielectric materials finely dispersed on the Fe-based powder

Fe-doped TiO2 nanopowders were prepared by mechanical alloying (MA) varying Fe contents up to 8.0 wt.%. The UV-vis absorption showed that the UV absorption for the Fe-doped powder shifted to a longer wavelength (red shift). The absorption threshold depends on the concentration of nano-size Fe dopant. As the Fe concentration increased up to 4 wt.%, the UV-vis absorption and the magnetization were increased. The benefical effect of Fe doping for photocatalysis and ferromagnetism had the critical dopant concentration of 4 wt.%. Based on the UV absorption and magnetization, the dopant level is localized to the valence band of TiO2.

WC-10Co-0.8VC nanocrystalline powders were sintered by spark plasma sintering (SPS) and hot press sintering (HPS), and the microstructure and properties were compared. Results show that dense WC-10Co-0.8VC can be obtained by SPS in several minutes when the sintering temperature is >1200℃. Sintered at a temperature of 1300℃, the sample prepared by SPS for 3 minutes has higher density, finer grains and better properties than that prepared by HPS for 60 minutes. SPS can be used to prepare nanocrystalline WC-10Co-0.8VC with improved properties when suitable sintering parametesr are chosen.

Recent research at Harbin Institute of Technology on the synthesis of nanocrystalline and untrafine grained materials by mechanical alloying/milling is reviewed. Examples of the materials include aluminum alloy, copper alloy, magnesium-based hydrogen storage material, and Nd2Fe14B/α-Fe magnetic nanocomposite. Details of the processes of mechanical alloying and consolidation of the mechanically alloyed nanocrystalline powder materials are presented. The microstructure characteristics and properties of the synthesized materials are addressed.

Microstructure and soft magnetic properties of bulk amorphous and/or nanocrystalline Fe73.5Cu1Nb3Si13.5B9 alloys prepared by consolidation at 5.5GPa were investigated. The relative density of the bulk sample 1 (from amorphous powders) was 98.5% and the grain sizes were about 10.6nm. While the relative density and grain sizes of bulk sample 2 (from nanocrystalline powders) are 98% and 20.1nm, respectively. Particularly, the bulk samples exhibited a good combined magnetic property: for Sample1, Ms=125emu/g and Hc=1.5Oe; for Sample2, Ms=129emu/g and Hc=3.3Oe. The success of synthesizing the nanocrystalline Fe-based bulk alloys will be encouraging for the future development of bulk nanocrystalline soft magnetic alloys.

The magnetic inductance of nanocrystalline Fe73Si16B7Nb3Cu1 and an amorphous FeSiB powder sheet has been investigated to identify RFID performance. The powder was mixed with binder and solvent and tape-casted to form films. Results show annealing significantly influenced on the inductance of the material. The surface oxidation of the particles was the main reason for the reduced inductance. The maximum inductance of Fe73Si16B7Nb3Cu1 alloy was about 88μH at 17.4 MHz, about 65% greater compared to the FeSiB alloy. The higher inductance in the nanocrystalline alloy indicates it may be used as a potential replacement of current RFID materials.

The amorphous alloy strip was pulverized to get a flake-shaped powder after annealing at for 90 min and subsequently ground to obtain finer flake-shaped powder by using a ball mill. The powder was mixed with polyimide-based binder of , and then the mixture was cold compacted to make a toroidal powder core. After crystallization treatment for 1 hour at , the powder was transformed from amorphous to nanocrystalline with the grain size of . Soft magnetic characteristics of the powder core was optimized at with the insulating binder of 3wt%. As a result, the powder core showed the outstanding magnetic properties in terms of core loss and permeability, which were originated from the optimization of the grain size and distribution of the insulating binder.

We report on the mechanical and structural properties of nanocrystalline 8% and 10% mol yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) obtained using mechanical alloying (MA). The as-milled powders show a body-centered cubic structure with grain sizes in the nanometer scale. After uniaxial pressing and sintering the compacts exhibit good mechanical properties. We discuss the correlation of these enhanced properties with the microstructural changes induced by heat treatment.

The anatase particle was facetted at the free surface and a neck formation between the anatase particles prior to the phase transformation occured. This resulted in the severe lattice distortion at the region of the interface near the neck and this can act as the nucleation sites for the phase transformation. The grain growth of rutile particles after the phase transformation grew very fast by the sweeping phenomena of grain boundary. Therfore, It leaded to the microstructure without the rutile phase located in anatase particle.

Nanostructured ceria powder was synthesized by a thermochemical process and investigated its applicability for an oxygen gas sensor. An amorphous precursor powders prepared by spray drying a cerium-nitrate solution were transformed successfully into nanostructured ceria by heat-treatment in air atmosphere. The powders were a loose agglomerated structure with extremely fine particles about 15 nm in size, resulting in a very high specific surface area . The oxygen sensitivity and the response time measured at sintered sample at was about -0.25 and very short, i.e., seconds, respectively.

The linear intercept (LI) method was used to quantitatively measure the intercepts of WC grains in nano-grained WC-10Co hardmetal. When the surveyed intercept numbers of WC grain exceeded 200, the statistic data for the mean grain size of WC were reproduced. The discriminative minimal grain size of used LI method was 12 nm; the maximum intercept of WC grain was 109 nm; the average intercept of WC grains was 45 nm and the corresponding 3D mean grain size of WC was 70 nm which is agreeable with the XRD outcome.

The hydrogen sorption speed of nanocrystalline and amorphous alloys was evaluated at room temperature. Nanocrystalline alloys of were prepared by planetary ball milling. The hydrogen sorption speed of nanocrystalline alloys was higher than that of the amorphous alloy. The enhanced sorption speed of nanocrystalline alloys was explained in terms of surface oxygen stability which has been known to retard the activation of amorphous alloys. The retardation can be reduced by formation of nanocrystals, which results in the observed increase in sorption properties