Structure and Soft Magnetic Properties of Bulk Fe-Al-Ga-P-C-B-Si Glassy Alloys Prepared by Consolidating Glassy Powders

With the aim of developing a bulk glassy Fe-based alloy with good soft magnetic properties by the powder metallurgy technique, we have applied the pulse current sintering technique to a Fe 70 Al 5 Ga 2 P 9.65 C 5.75 B 4.6 Si 3 glassy alloy powder with a large supercooled liquid region of 60K before crystallization. The existence of the supercooled liquid region was found to enable us to form a bulk glassy alloy with a very high relative density of 99%. The resulting bulk glassy alloy exhibits good soft magnetic properties, i.e., 1.17T for flux density at a field of 800A/m, 12.0A/m for coercive force and 8000 for maximum permeability which are much superior to those for the bulk amorphous Fe-Si-B alloy prepared by the same sintering method. The much better soft magnetic properties for the multicomponent Fe-based bulk alloy are attributed to the combination of the high relative density and the unique amorphous structure with the features of high packing density and long-range homogeneous atomic configurations. The first success of forming the bulk amorphous alloy with good soft magnetic properties by the powder metallurgy technique is expected to enable us to use as practical soft magnetic materials.