Hybrid amorphous soft magnetic composites with ultrafine FeSiBCr and submicron FeBP particles for MHz frequency power applications

Abstract

A novel hybrid amorphous soft magnetic composite (SMC) for MHz power applications is fabricated using amorphous powders of ultrafine(<10 μm) spherical FeSiBCr and submicron(100 nm∼1 μm) FeBP powders. The submicron amorphous FeBP powders are found to occupy the gaps between the micron-sized FeSiBCr amorphous powders, enabling one to enhance the density and magnetic properties (permeability and loss) of the composite in a MHz frequency range. The magnetic loss of the soft magnetic composite mixed with only 1 wt% submicron amorphous particles is just 511 kW/m3 at 30 mT/1 MHz, and the permeability of DC bias superposition under 100 Oe reaches 90%. In addition, the permeability of the hybrid soft magnetic composite and the submicron amorphous composite reach 20 and 5, and the loss tangent is only 0.03–0.08 and 0.02 in 100 MHz region, respectively. This amorphous soft magnetic composite exhibits a great potential for the applications in wide band gap semiconductor switching power supplies.