Isotropic nanocrystalline (Nd,Pr)(Fe,Co)B permanent magnets

Nanokristalline Permanentmagnete zeigen ungewöhnliche magnetische Eigenschaften aufgrund von Oberflächen- und Grenzflächeneffekten, die verschieden von denen massiver oder mikrokristalliner Materialien sind. Diese Arbeit zeigt Ergebnisse einer systematischen Untersuchung der Beziehung zwischen Mikrostruktur und magnetischen Eigenschaften von isotropen nanokristallinen (Nd,Pr)(Fe,Co)B-Permanentmagneten. Hochkoerzitive Magnete vom Typ (Nd,Pr)FeB wurden durch hochenergetisches Mahlen in der Kugelmühle oder Rascherstarrung hergestellt. Der Einfluss geringer Mengen von Zusätzen wie Dy und Zr und die Substitution von Nd durch Pr auf die magnetischen Eigenschaften wird dargestellt. Weiterhin wurde eine Einschätzung des Warmumformverhaltens dieser Materialien durchgeführt. Hochenergetisches Kugelmahlen einer Legierung mit der Anfangszusammensetzung Pr9Nd3Dy1Fe72Co8B6.9Zr0.1 führte, nach Glühbehandlung, zu fast einphasigem Magnetpulver mit einem maximalen Energieprodukt von (BH)max~140 kJm-3. Das hochenergetische Kugelmahlen wurde zu einer sehr vielseitigen Technik zur Herstellung hochleistungsfähiger Nanokompositmagnete weiterentwickelt. Das Zulegieren unterschiedlicher Anteile von weichmagnetischem alpha-Fe ist damit sehr effektiv möglich. Der Zusatz von 25 Gew.-% alpha-Fe führt zu einem hohen (BH)max=178kJm-3. Dies wird auf eine sehr effektive Austauschkopplung zwischen den hart- und weichmagnetischen Phasen zurückgeführt. Die Natur der intergranularen Wechselwirkungen kann durch die Wohlfarth´sche Remanenzanalyse (?deltaJ-plot¡§) beschrieben werden. Im speziellen wurden deltaJ-Diagramme für verschiedene (i) alpha-Fe Gehalte, (ii) Korngrößen und (iii) Austauschlängen erstellt. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass in den Nanokompositmagneten auf Pr-Basis keine Spinumorientierung auftritt. Abschließend zeigt die Arbeit die Möglichkeit der Nutzung einer mechanisch aktivierten Gas-Festkörper-Reaktion auf, mit der eine sehr feinkörnige Mikrostruktur erhalten wird. Die Untersuchungen wurden mit stöchiometrischen Nd2(Fe1-xCox)14B-Legierungen begonnen (x=0-1). Die Verbindungen wurden unter höheren Wasserstoffdrücken und Temperaturen gemahlen, wodurch sie zu NdH2+delta und krz-(Fe,Co) (x=0-0.75) oder kfz-Co (x=1) entmischt wurden. Die Korngrößen des rekombinierten Nd2(Co,Fe)14B-Materials liegen im Bereich von 40-50 nm.Nanocrystalline permanent magnets present unusual magnetic properties because of surface/interface effects different from those of bulk or microcrystalline materials. This work presents results of a systematic investigation of the relationship between microstructure and magnetic properties in isotropic nanocrystalline (Nd,Pr)(Fe,Co)B permanent magnets. Highly coercive (Nd,Pr)FeB-type magnets have been produced using high energy ball milling and melt-spinning. The influence of small amounts of additives, Dy and Zr, and the substitution of Nd by Pr on the microstructural and magnetic properties are shown. An assessment of the hot deformation behaviour has been carried out. Intensive milling of an alloy with starting composition Pr9Nd3Dy1Fe72Co8B6.9Zr0.1 yields, after annealing treatment, nearly single-phase magnet powders with a maximum energy product (BH)max?î140kJm-3. Co has a beneficial effect on the intrinsic magnetic properties but also on the microstructure, with a mean grain size of 20nm. Intensive milling is used to produce high-performance nanocomposite magnets by blending this latter alloy with different fractions of soft magnetic alfa-Fe. Addition of 25wt.% alfa-Fe leads to a high (BH)max=178 kJm-3 due to an effective exchange-coupling between the hard and the soft magnetic phases. The intergrain interactions between the crystallites of the nanocomposite structure are analysed. Demagnetisation recoil loops of the nanocomposite magnets show relatively open minor loops due to the exchange-spring mechanism. Information about the intergrain interactions during demagnetisation are obtained by plotting the deviation of the demagnetising remanence from the Wohlfarth-model (¡§deltaJ-plot¡¨). Exchange-coupling phenomena are studied by analysing the evolution of the corresponding deltaJ values when varying (i) the alfa-Fe content, (ii) the annealing temperature, i.e. the grain size and (iii) the measurement temperature. Low temperature measurements do not reveal any sign of spin reorientation for these Pr-based nanocomposite magnets. The work concludes showing the possibility of using a mechanically activated gas-solid reaction to obtain an effective grain refined microstructure starting from stoichiometric Nd2(Fe1-xCox)14B alloys (x=0-1). These compounds were milled under enhanced hydrogen pressure and temperature leading to their disproportionation into NdH2+delta and bcc-(Fe,Co) (x=0-0.75) or fcc-Co (x=1). Grain sizes of recombined Nd2(Fe,Co)14B materials were found to be 40-50nm

Design of on-farm precision experiments to estimate site-specific crop responses

Site-specific prescriptions require estimating response functions to controllable inputs across the field. The methodology of applying geographically weighted regression to on-farm precision experimentation studies opens new opportunities to study site-specific responses to inputs in farmers' fields by locally estimating the regression coefficients. However, the effect of the experiment's spatial layout, such as plot dimensions and randomization, and spatial structure of the yield response on the experiment performance are yet to be studied. Detailed information about these effects is needed to improve trial design to detect site-specific responses. A simulation study was conducted using 14,400 fields of 37 ha and 9-m resolution. Coefficients from a spatial variable response function were drawn from five random fields generated by unconditional Gaussian geostatistical simulations. Four levels of nitrogen were assigned to plots using 18 systematic and randomized chessboard designs with different plot sizes. Simulated yield data was obtained by combining the coefficients, treatment, and random error. The effect of spatial structure and the designs was assessed with measures of agreement between the true and estimated maps of regression coefficients. The ability to capture or approximate the true spatial pattern of the response function increased as the underlying response function's spatial structure increases. Overall differences in performance between design were observed across the spatial structure tested, mostly related to randomization and plot dimensions. In general best results were achieved by systematic designs with small or intermediate plot sizes (r = 0.54 ± 0.05, MAE = 0.005 ± 0.0005, SDR = 0.81 ± 0.06, and CP = 0.50 ± 0.04). Our methodology provides a path for testing designs under different spatial variability scenarios.Fil: Alesso, Carlos Agustín. University of Illinois. Urbana - Champaign; Estados Unidos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas. Instituto de Ciencias Agropecuarias del Litoral. - Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Ciencias Agropecuarias del Litoral.; ArgentinaFil: Cipriotti, Pablo Ariel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura; ArgentinaFil: Bollero, Germán Alberto. University of Illinois. Urbana - Champaign; Estados UnidosFil: Martin, Nicolas Federico. University of Illinois. Urbana - Champaign; Estados Unido

Note: Vectorial-magneto optical Kerr effect technique combined with variable temperature and full angular range all in a single setup

Here, we report on a versatile full angular resolved/broad temperature range/vectorial magneto optical Kerr effect (MOKE) magnetometer, named TRISTAN. Its versatility relies on its capacity to probe temperature and angular dependencies of magnetization reversal processes without the need to do any intervention on the apparatus during measurements. The setup is a combination of a vectorial MOKE bench and a cryostat with optical access. The cryostat has a motorized rotatable sample holder with azimuthal correction. It allows for simultaneous and quantitative acquisition of the two in-plane magnetization components during the hysteresis loop at different temperatures from 4 K up to 500 K and in the whole angular range, without neither changing magnet orientation nor opening the cryostat. Measurements performed in a model system with competing collinear biaxial and uniaxial contributions are presented to illustrate its capabilitiesP.P. acknowledges financial support from MINECO through Contract No. JCI-2011- 09602. F.J.T. acknowledges financial support from Ramon y Cajal program (RYC-2011-09617). This work has been supported by MINECO through Project Nos. MAT2011-25598 and MAT2012-39308, by the Comunidad de Madrid through Project No. S2013/MIT-2850 NANOFRONTMAG-CM and by EU-FP7 through NANOPYME Project (No. 310516

Room Temperature In-plane <100> Magnetic Easy Axis for Fe3O4/SrTiO3(001):Nb Grown by Infrared PLD

We examine the magnetic easy-axis directions of stoichiometric magnetite films grown on SrTiO3:Nb by infrared pulsed-laser deposition. Spin-polarized low-energy electron microscopy reveals that the individual magnetic domains are magnetized along the in-plane film directions. Magneto-optical Kerr effect measurements show that the maxima of the remanence and coercivity are also along in-plane film directions. This easy-axis orientation differs from bulk magnetite and films prepared by other techniques, establishing that the magnetic anisotropy can be tuned by film growth.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure

Magnetization reversal signatures in the magnetoresistance of magnetic multilayers

The simultaneous determination of magnetoresistance and vectorial-resolved magnetization hysteresis curves in a spin valve structure reveals distinct magnetoresistive features for different magnetic field orientations, which are directly related to the magnetization reversal processes. Measurements performed in the whole angular range demonstrate that the magnetoresistive response originates from the intrinsic anisotropic angular dependence of the magnetization orientation between the two ferromagnetic layers. This also provides direct proof that the spin-dependent scattering in the bulk of the magnetic layers is at the origin of the magnetoresistive signal

Exploring the limits of soft x-ray magnetic holography: Imaging magnetization reversal of buried interfaces (invited)

The following article appeared in Journal of Applied Physics 109.7 (2011): 07D357 and may be found at http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jap/109/7/10.1063/1.3567035Only a very few experimental techniques can address the microscopic magnetization reversal behavior of the different magnetic layers in a multilayered system with element selectivity. We present an element-selective study of ferromagnetic (FM) [Co/Pt]n multilayers with perpendicular anisotropy exchange-coupled to antiferromagnetic (AFM) FeMn and IrMn films performed with a new experimental set-up developed for both soft x-ray spectroscopy and holography imaging purposes. The spectroscopy analysis allows the quantification of the unpinned (pinned) uncompensated AFM moments, providing direct evidence of its parallel (antiparallel) alignment with respect to the FM moments. The holography experiments give a direct view of both FM and uncompensated AFM magnetic structures, showing that they replicate to each other during magnetization reversal. Remarkably, we show magnetic images for effective thicknesses as small as one monolayer. Our results provide new microscopic insights into the exchange coupling phenomena and explore the sensitivity limits of these techniques. Future trends are also discussed.We acknowledge technical support by the ESRF staff R. Barrett, R. Homs-Regojo, T. Trenit, and G. Retout. A. B. acknowledges support through a Ramo´n y Cajal contract from the Spanish MICINN. This work was supported in part by the Spanish MICINN through Projects CSD2007-00010, and MAT2010-21822 and by Comunidad de Madrid through Project S2009/MAT-1726.Comunidad de Madrid. S2009/MAT-1726/NANOBIOMAGNE