Fabrication of a ferromagnetic composite powder for the magnesium and BaFe12O19 system by mechanical alloying (MA) is investigated at room temperature. Mixtures of Mg and BaFe12O19 powders with a weight ratio of Mg:BaFe12O19 = 4:1, 3:2, 2:3 and 1:4 are used. Optimal MA conditions to obtain a ferromagnetic composite with fine microstructure are investigated by X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) measurement. It is found that Mg-BaFe12O19 composite powders in which BaFe12O19 is dispersed in Mg matrix are successfully produced by MA of BaFe12O19 with Mg for 80 min. for all compositions. Magnetization of Mg- BaFe12O19 composite powders gradually increases with increasing the amounts of BaFe12O19, whereas coercive force of MA powders gradually decreases due to the refinement of BaFe12O19 powders with MA time for all compositions. However, it can be seen that the coercivity of Mg-BaFe12O19 MA composite powders with a weight ratio of Mg:BaFe12O19=4:1 and 3:2 for MA 80 min. are still high, with values of 1260 Oe and 1320 Oe compared to that of Mg:BaFe12O19=1:4. This clearly suggests that the refinement of BaFe12O19 powders during MA process for Mg:BaFe12O19=4:1 and 3:2 tends to be suppressed due to ductile Mg powders.

Synthesis of composite powders for the Fe2O3-Zn system by mechanical alloying (MA) has been investigated at room temperature. Optimal milling and heat treatment conditions to obtain soft magnetic composite with fine microstructure were investigated by X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) measurement. It is found that α-Fe/ZnO composite powders in which ZnO is dispersed in α-Fe matrix can be obtained by MA of Fe2O3 with Zn for 4 hours. The change in magnetization and coercivity also reflects the details of the solid-state reduction process of hematite by pure metal of Zn during MA. Densification of the MA powders was performed in a spark plasma sintering (SPS) machine at 900 ~ 1,000 ℃ under 60 MPa. Shrinkage change after SPS of sample MA'ed for 5 hrs was significant above 300 ℃ and gradually increased with increasing temperature up to 800 ℃. X-ray diffraction results show that the average grain size of α-Fe in the α-Fe/ZnO composite sintered at 900 ℃ is in the range of 110 nm.

Fabrication of soft magnetic composite powders for the Fe2O3-Ca system by mechanical alloying(MA) has been investigated at room temperature. It is found that soft magnetic composite powders in which CaO is dispersed in α-Fe matrix are obtained by MA of Fe2O3 with Ca for 5 hours. Changes in magnetization and coercivity also reflect the details of the solidstate reduction process of hematite by pure metal of Ca during MA. The saturation magnetization of MA powders increases with increasing MA time and reaches a maximum value of 65 emu/g after 7 hours of MA. The average grain size of α-Fe in MA powders, estimated by diffraction line-width, gradually decreases with increasing MA time and reaches 52 nm after 5 hours of MA. It can also be seen that the coercivity of the 5-hour MA sample is fairly high at 190 Oe, suggesting that the grain refinement of already-produced α-Fe tends to clearly occur during MA.

In this study, ultra-fine soft-magnetic micro-powders are prepared by high-pressure gas atomization of an Fe-based alloy, Fe-Hf-B-Nb-P-C. Spherical powders are successfully obtained by disintegration of the alloy melts under high-pressure He or N2 gas. The mean particle diameter of the obtained powders is 25.7 μm and 42.1 μm for He and N2 gas, respectively. Their crystallographic structure is confirmed to be amorphous throughout the interior when the particle diameter is less than 45 μm. The prepared powders show excellent soft magnetic properties with a saturation magnetization of 164.5 emu/g and a coercivity of 9.0 Oe. Finally, a toroidal core is fabricated for measuring the magnetic permeability, and a μr of up to 78.5 is obtained. It is strongly believed that soft magnetic powders prepared by gas atomization will be beneficial in the fabrication of high-performance devices, including inductors and motors.

In this study, we fabricated Nd2Fe14B hard magnetic powders with various sizes via spray drying combined with reduction-diffusion process. Spray drying is widely used to produce nearly spherical particles that are relatively homogeneous. Thus, the precursor particles were prepared by spray drying using the aqueous solution containing Nd salts, Fe salts and boric acid with the target stoichiometric composition of Nd2Fe14B. The mean particle sizes of the spray-dried powders are in the range from one to seven micrometer, which are adjusted by controlling the concentra- tions of precursor solutions. After debinding the as-prepared precursor particles, ball milling was also conducted to con- trol the particle sizes of Nd-Fe-B oxide powders. The resulting particles with different sizes were subjected to subsequent treatments including hydrogen reduction, Ca reduction and washing for CaO removal. The size effect of Nd-Fe-B oxide particles on the formation of Nd2Fe14B phase and magnetic properties was investigated.

A novel route to prepare Nd-Fe-B magnetic particles by utilizing both spray drying and reduction/diffu- sion processes was investigated in this study. Precursors were prepared by spray drying method using the aqueous solu- tions containing Nd salt, Fe salt and boric acid with stoichiometric ratios. Precursor particles could be obtained with various sizes from 2 to 10 µm by controlling concentrations of the solutions and the average size of 2 µm of precursors were selected for further steps. After heat treatment of precursors in air, Nd and Fe oxides were formed through desalt- ing procedure, followed by reduction processes in Hydrogen (H2) atmosphere and with Calcium (Ca) granules in Argon (Ar) successively. Moreover, diffusion between Nd and Fe occurred during Ca reduction and Nd2Fe14B particles were formed. With Ca amount added to particles after H2 reduction, intrinsic coercivity was changed from 1 to 10 kOe. In order to remove and leach CaO and residual Ca, de-ionized water and dilute acid were used. Acidic solutions were more effective to eliminate impurities, but Fe and Nd were dissolved out from the particles. Finally, Nd2Fe14B magnetic particles were synthesized after washing in de-ionized water with a mean size of 2 µm and their maximum energy prod- uct showed 9.23 MGOe.

Characteristics of Al-based composites with waste stainless steel short fiber, fabricated by magnetic pulsed compaction and sintering were investigated. The compacts prepared by magnetic pulsed compaction showed high relative density and homogeneous microstructure compared with that by conventional press compaction. The relative density of sintered composites at for 1 h exhibited the same value with compacts and decreased with increase in STS short fiber content. The reaction between Al and STS phase was confirmed by the microstructural analysis using EDS. The sintered composites, prepared by magnetic pulsed compaction, showed increased hardness value with increasing STS fiber content. Maximum yield strength of 100 MPa and tensile strength of 232 MPa were registered in the AI-based composite with 30 vol% STS short fiber.

Metal powder for dust core application was developed. The powder can be produced improved high-pressure water atomization process. The process has produced powder of spherical shape and lower coercivity. The dust core obta ined shows lower core loss.

The influence of Hi-flux powders characteristics on the performance of magnetic powder cores was studied. It was found that different cooling rate and nozzle configuration could change the shape and microstructure of powders. Smooth surface and spherical shape of powders were beneficial to improve DC bias performance and reduce core losses of magnetic powder core.

Magnetic properties of nanostructured materials are affected by the microstructures such as grain size (or particle size), internal strain and crystal structure. Thus, it is necessary to study the synthesis of nanostructured materials to make significant improvements in their magnetic properties. In this study, nanostructured Fe-20at.%Co and Fe-50at.%Co alloy powders were prepared by hydrogen reduction from the two oxide powder mixtures, and . Furthermore, the effect of microstructure on the magnetic properties of hydrogen reduced Fe-Co alloy powders was examined using XRD, SEM, TEM, and VSM.

Nano Fe-6.5wt%Si powders have been synthesized by mechano-chemical process (MCP) for an application of soft magnetic core. Owing to hard and brittle characteristics of Fe-6.5Si nano powders having large surface area, it is very difficult to reach high density more than 70% of theoretical density (~7.4 g/) by cold compaction. To overcome such problem a magnetic pulsed compaction (MPC), which is one of dynamic compaction techniques, was applied. The green density was achieved about 78% (~5.8 g/) by MPC at room temperature.

We report the crystallization and magnetic properties of non-equilibrium alloy powders produced by rod-milling as well as by new chemical leaching. X-ray diffractometry, transmission electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry and vibrating sample magnetometry were used to characterize the as-milled and leached specimens. After 400 h or 500 h milling, only the broad peaks of nano bcc crystalline phases were detected in the XRD patterns. The crystallite size, the peak and the crystallization temperatures increased with increasing Fe. After being annealed at for 1 h for as-milled alloy powders, the peaks of bcc are observed. After being annealed at for 1 h for leached specimens, these non-equi-librium phases transformed into fcc Cu and phases for the x=0.25 specimen, and into bcc phases for both the x=0.50 and the x=0.75 specimens. The saturation magnetization decreased with increasing milling time for alloy powders. On cooling the leached specimens from ,\;the magnetization first sharply increase at about for x=0.25, x=0.50, and x=0.75 specimens, repectively.

The purpose of this study is the fabrication of nano-sized Fe-Co alloy powders with soft magnetic properties by the slurry mixing and hydrogen reduction (SMHR) process. 0 and powders with 99.9% purities were used for synthesizing nanostructured Fe-Co alloy powder. Nano-sized Fe-Co alloy powders were successfully fabricated using SMHR, which was performed at 50 for 1 h in H atmosphere. The fabricated Fe-Co alloy powders showed ' phase (ordered body centered cubic) with the average particle size of 45 nm. The SMHR powder exhibited low coercivity force of 32.5 Oe and saturation magnetization of 214 emu/g.

Nanocrystalline materials of Ni and Ni-Cu alloy have been synthesized by the pulsed wire evaporation (PWE) method and these abnormal magnetic properties in the magnetic ordered state have been characterized using both VSM and SQUID in the range of high and low magnetic fields. Ni and Ni-Cu particles with an average size of 20 to 80 nm were found to influence magnetic hysterisis behavior and the results of powder neutron diffraction patterns and saturation magnetization curves are shown to indicate the absence of the NiO phase. The shifted hysterisis loop and irreversibility of the magnetization curve in the high field region were observed in the magnetic-ordered state of both Ni and Ni-Cu. The virgin magnetization curve for Ni slightly spillover on the limited hysterisis loop (20kOe). This irreversibility in the high field of 50 kOe can be explained by non-col-linear behavior and the existence of the metastable states of the magnetization at the surface layer (or core) of the particle in the applied magnetic field. Immiscible alloy of Cu-Ni was also found to show irreversibility having two different magnetic phases.