Grain boundary diffusion treatment of sintered NdFeB magnets by low cost La-Al-Cu alloys with various Al/Cu ratios

Abstract

Abstract Different from many previous reports, La-Al-Cu alloys with different Al/Cu ratios containing only high abundant rare earth element La were employed for grain boundary diffusion treatment for sintered NdFeB permanent magnets. It is found that Al and Cu contents should be optimized to achieve coercivity enhancement. The coercivity of the magnet was enhanced from 1000 to 1006, 1077 and 1156 kA/m after La70Al10Cu20, La70Al15Cu15 and La70Al20Cu10 alloys diffusion, at 800 °C for 1 h followed by 500 °C for 3 h. The coercivity stability was also improved, indicated by the enhanced temperature coefficient of β from −0.63 to −0.61, −0.61 and −0.60%/K. Microstructure investigation indicates that the formation of continuous grain boundary phase after diffusion reduces the magnetic exchange interaction and contributes to the enhanced coercivity. After diffusion, the La2O3 phase was observed in both the triple junction and strip grain boundary. La, Al and Cu elements showed different distributions in the magnets. The diffusion coefficients obtained from Fick’s second law indicate that La diffuses faster than Al and Cu at 800 °C, which explains the various effects of the diffusion sources and different coercivity enhancements by the alloys with different Al/Cu ratios. Although the process should be further optimized, the current results demonstrate that the grain boundary diffusion using low cost La-Al-Cu alloys can improve the microstructure and enhance the coercivity of NdFeB magnets.