Apfim and HREM Studies of Nanocomposite Soft and Hard Magnetic Materials

Atom probe field ion microscopy is the most suitable technique for determining local chemical composition changes during nanocrystallization processes of amorphous alloys. In this talk, we report atom probe field ion microscopy (APFIM) and high resolution electron microscopy (HREM) studies on nanocrystallization processes in Fe-Si-B-Nb-Cu soft magnet and Fe-Nd-B-Co-Ga exchange spring magnet.Fe or Co based alloys with nanocrystalline microstructure show excellent permeability because the net magnetocrystalline anisotropy is significantly reduced when the grain size becomes smaller than the ferromagnetic exchange length. Fe-Si-B-Nb-Cu alloy is the pioneering nanocrystalline soft magnetic material invented by Yoshizawa et al. in 1988 [1]. Our previous works [2,3] reported evidence for clustering of Cu prior to the onset of the crystallization reaction. However, in the previous studies, it was not confirmed that these Cu clusters work as heterogeneous nucleation sites for a-Fe primary crystals.