Data-driven design of a new class of rare-earth free permanent magnets

Abstract A new class of rare-earth-free permanent magnets is proposed. The parent compound of this class is Co 3 Mn 2 Ge, and its discovery is the result of first principles theory combined with experimental synthesis and characterisation. The theory is based on a high-throughput/data-mining search among materials listed in the ICSD database. From ab-initio theory of the defect free material it is predicted that the saturation magnetization is 1.71 T, the uniaxial magnetocrystalline anisotropy is 1.44 MJ/m 3 , and the Curie temperature is 700 K. Co 3 Mn 2 Ge samples were then synthesized and characterised with respect to structure and magnetism. The crystal structure was found to be the MgZn 2 -type, with partial disorder of Co and Ge on the crystallographic lattice sites. From magnetization measurements a saturation polarization of 0.86 T at 10 K was detected, together with a uniaxial magnetocrystalline anisotropy constant of 1.18 MJ/m 3 , and the Curie temperature of T C = 359 K. These magnetic properties make Co 3 Mn 2 Ge a very promising material as a rare-earth free permanent magnet, and since we can demonstrate that magnetism depends critically on the amount of disorder of the Co and Ge atoms, a further improvement of the magnetism is possible. We demonstrate here that the class of compounds based on T 3 Mn 2 X (T = Co or alloys between Fe and Ni; X=Ge, Al or Ga) in the MgZn 2 structure type, form a new class of rare-earth free permanent magnets with very promising performance.