Characterization of the microstructural, magnetic, and thermal behaviors of boron-doped Fe–Co–Ni alloys produced via mechanical alloying

Abstract

FeCoNi alloys, both doped and undoped, were synthesized into nanocrystalline forms using a high-energy mechanical milling technique. The study used the x-ray diffraction technique to examine the microstructure characteristics of powder materials. The identified patterns were examined using Maud software. It was found that mechanical alloying produced solid solutions with BCC and FCC structures and crystallite sizes in the range of 25 nm after 100h of milling. The BCC-Fe(Co,Ni,B) and orthorhombic-Fe3B phases were refined for the alloy doped with amorphous boron, while only the bcc-Fe(Co,Ni,B) phase was identified for the alloy doped with crystalline boron. Meanwhile, the FeCoNi alloy revealed a mixture of FCC-Co and BCC-FeCoNi phases. This sample has a soft ferromagnetic behavior, whereas the doped ones have hard ferromagnetic behaviors. The squareness ratios (Mr/Ms) are typically low. The microstructural variations were associated with magnetic characteristics. The thermal stability of the alloyed powder mixtures was investigated by the DSC technique from 25 to 700 °C for 2h. The alloyed samples were first annealed at selected temperatures and then analyzed using x-ray diffraction. The obtained x-ray diffraction results proved that at temperatures below 230 °C, the initial heavy deformed structure’s structural relaxation followed by the recrystallization of the fcc-Co phase and, at higher temperatures, the recrystallization of new phases, such as α-FeCo, fcc-FeNi, fcc-Ni3Fe, and borides of the (FeNi)23B6, -(FeCo)23B6 types. The stability of the crystalline phases that are formed and their magnetic characteristics can be regulated through a carefully calibrated annealing process.