Effects of magnetic pre-alignment of nano-powders on formation of high textured barium hexa-ferrite quasi-single crystals via a magnetic forming and liquid participation sintering route

Abstract Highly textured barium hexa-ferrite quasi-single crystal with narrow ferromagnetic resonance line-width is believed to be a potential gyromagnetic material for self-biased microwave devices. To fabricate barium hexa-ferrite quasi-single crystal with a high grain orientation degree, a magnetic forming and liquid participation sintering route has been developed. In this paper, the effects of the pre-alignment of the starting nano-powders on the formation of barium quasi-single crystal structures have been investigated. The results indicated that: the crystallites with large sizes and small specific surfaces were easily aligned for they got higher driving forces and lower resistances during magnetic forming. The average restricting magnetic field was about 4.647 kOe to overcome the average friction barrier between crystallites. The pre-aligned crystallites in magnetic forming acted as the “crystal seeds” for oriented growth of the un-aligned crystallites during liquid participation sintering to achieve a high grain orientation. To effectively promote the grain orientation degrees of the sintered pellets, the grain orientation degrees of the green compacts must be higher than a limited value of 15.0%. Barium hexa-ferrite quasi-single crystal with a high grain orientation degree of 98.6% was successfully fabricated after sintering the green compact with its grain orientation degree of 51.1%.