Effect of Cu redistribution in grain boundary on magnetic properties of Sm(Co0.665Fe0.25Cu0.06Zr0.025)7 permanent magnets

Abstract The correlation between preparation conditions and microstructure as well as magnetic properties were studied for Sm(Co 0.665 Fe 0.25 Cu 0.06 Zr 0.025 ) 7 magnets. Increase of sintering temperature from 1468 to 1493 K promotes the amalgamation of small grains into big ones, resulting in an enlargement of average grain size from 10 to 25 μm and diffusion of Cu from inner grains to Cu-lean grain boundaries. As a result, the demagnetization curve squareness of the magnets improves substantially, leading to a remarkable enhancement of the maximum energy product from 21.3 to 27.1 MGOe. The coercivity of the magnets drops from 25.3 to 16.0 kOe at the same time, which was verified by the increase of the average domain width from 1.1 μm in small grains to 2.5 μm in big grains. It is therefore concluded that tuning of the preparation conditions causes a more homogeneous distribution of Cu, which is crucial for the improvement of magnetic properties.