Mössbauer study of alloy Fe67.5Ni32.5, prepared by mechanical alloying

Abstract

We present the study of effect of the particle size on the structural and magnetic properties of the Fe67.5Ni32.5 alloy, prepared by mechanical alloying (MA). After milling the powders during 10 hours they were separated by sieving using different meshes. The refinement of the X-ray patterns showed the coexistence of the BCC (Body Centered Cubic) and the FCC (Face Centered Cubic) phases in all samples with lattice parameters and crystallite sizes independent of the mean particle size. However, big particles presented bigger volumetric fraction of BCC grains. The Mossbauer spectra were fitted with a broad sextet corresponding to the ferromagnetic BCC phase, a hyperfine magnetic field distribution and a broad singlet which correspond to the ferromagnetic and paramagnetic sites of the FCC phase, respectively. Hysteresis loops showed a magnetically, soft behavior for all the samples, however, the saturation magnetization values are smaller for the original powder and for the powders with small, mean, particle size due to the dipolar magnetic interaction and the smaller mean magnetic moment, respectively. These effects were proved by Henkel plots that were made to the samples.