Rare earth Nd-Fe-B, a widely used magnet composition, was synthesized in a shape of powders using gas atomization, a rapid solidification based process. The microstructure and properties were investigated in accordance with solidification rate and densification. Detailed microstructural characterization was performed by using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and the structural properties were measured by using X-ray diffraction. Iron in the form of α-Fe phase was observed in powder of about 30 μm. It was expected that fraction of Nd2Fe14B phase increased rapidly with decrease in powder size, on the other hand that of α-Fe phase was decreased. Nd-rich phase diffused from grain boundary to particle boundary after hot deformation due to capillary action. The coercivity of the alloy decreased with increase in powder size. After hot deformation, Nd2Fe14B phase tend to align to c-axis.

Neodymium-Iron-Boron (Nd-Fe-B) magnets are considered to have the highest energy density, and their applications include electric motors, generators, hard disc drives, and MRI. It is well known that a fiber structure with a high aspect ratio and the large specific surface area has the potential to overcome the limitations, such as inhomogeneous structures and the difficulty in alignment of easy axis, associated with such magnets obtained by conventional methods. In this work, a suitable heat-treatment procedure based on single-step and multistep treatments to synthesize sound electrospun Nd-Fe-B-O nanofibers of Φ572 nm was investigated. The single-step heat-treated (directly heat-treated at 800°C for 2 h in air) samples disintegrated along with the residual organic compounds, whereas the multistep heat-treated (sequential three-step heat-treated including three steps;: dehydration (250°C for 30 min in an inert atmosphere), debinding (650°C for 30 min in air), and calcination (800°C for 1 h in air)) fibers maintained sound fibrous morphology without any organic impurities. They could maintain such fibrous morphologies during the dehydration and debinding steps because of the relatively low internal pressures of water vapor and polymer, respectively. In addition, the NdFeO3 alloying phase was dominant in the multistep heat-treated fibers due to the removal of barriers to mass transfer in the interparticles.

To form the fine micro-structures, the Pr17Fe78B5 magnet powders were produced in the optimized gas atomization conditions and it was investigated that the formation of the textures, microstructures, and the changes in the magnetic properties with increasing the deformation temperatures and rolling directions. Due to the rapid cooling system than the casting process, the homogenous microstructures were composed of the Pr-rich and Pr2Fe14B without any oxides and α-Fe and enables grain refinement. The pore ratios were 2.87, 1.42, and 0.22% at the deformation temperatures of 600, 700, 800°C, respectively in the rolled samples to align the c-axis which is the magnetic easy axis. Because Pr-rich phase cannot flow into the pore with a liquid state at low temperature, the improvement of pore densification was gradually observed with increasing deformation temperature. To confirm the magnetic decoupling effects of Pr2Fe14B phases by Pr-rich phases, the magnetic properties were investigated in rolled samples produced at the deformation temperature of 800°C. Although the remanent field is slightly decreased by 30%, the coercivity fields increased by about 2 times than that previous casted ingot. It is suggested that the gas atomization method can be suitable for fabricating grain refined and pure PrFeB magnets, and the plastic deformation conditions and rolling directions are a critical role to manipulate microstructure and magnetic properties.

In this study, we demonstrate a facile and cost-effective way to synthesize Nd-Fe-B of various shapes such as powders, rods and fibers using electrospinning, heat-treatment and washing procedures. Initially Nd-Fe-B fibers were fabricated using electrospinning. The as-spun Nd-Fe-B fibers had diameters ranging 489 to 630 nm depending on the PVP concentration in reaction solutions. The different morphologies of the Nd2Fe14B magnetic materials were related to the difference in thickness of the as-spun fibers. The relationships between the as-spun fiber thickness, the final morphology, and magnetic properties were briefly elucidated. The intrinsic coercivity of Nd2Fe14B changed with the change in morphology from powder (3908 Oe) to fiber (4622 Oe). This work demonstrates the effect of the Nd-Fe-B magnetic properties with morphology and can be extended to the experimental design of other magnetic materials.

NdFeB anisotropic sintered permanent magnets are typically fabricated by strip casting or melt spinning. In this study, the plastic deformability of an NdFeB alloy was investigated to study the possibility of fabricating anisotropic sintered magnets using gas atomized powders. The results show that the stoichiometric composition Nd12Fe82B6 softens at high temperatures. The aspect ratio and orientation factor of Nd12Fe82B6 billets after plastic deformation were found to increase with increasing plastic deformation temperature, particularly above 800℃. This confirms that softening at high temperatures can lead to plastic deformation of Nd2Fe14B hard magnetic phases.

In this study, we demonstrated a method of controllably synthesizing one-dimensional nanostructures having a dense or a hollow structure using fibrous sacrificial templates with tunable crystallinity. The fibrous Ga2O3 templates were prepared by calcining the polymer/gallium precursor nanofiber synthesized by an electrospinning process, and their crystallinity was varied by controlling the calcination temperature from 500oC to 900oC. GaN nanostructures were transformed by nitriding the Ga2O3 nanofibers using NH3 gas. All of the transformed GaN nanostructures maintained a one-dimensional structure well and exhibited a diameter of about 50 nm, but their morphology was clearly distinguished according to the crystallinity of the templates. When the templates having a relatively low crystallinity were used, the transformed GaN showed a hollow nanostructure, and as the crystallinity increased, GaN was converted into a denser nanostructure. This morphological difference can be explained as being caused by the difference in the diffusion rate of Ga depending on the crystallinity of Ga2O3 during the conversion from Ga2O3 to GaN. It is expected that this technique will make possible the tubular nanostructure synthesis of nitride functional nanomaterials.