Rare earth permanent magnet with easy magnetization

Rare earth permanent magnets have high energy products and coercivities, and thus the volume miniaturization of magnetic devices has been possible with improved magnetic performance. Although the high energy products of these rare earth permanent magnets provide substantial advantages for magnetic design and application, the strong magnetic force of the magnetized magnets makes assembly difficult. Therefore, a special device is needed to assemble the magnetized magnets. On the other hand, unmagnetized magnets are assembled and then they are magnetized. The assembled magnets are generally more difficult to magnetize than unassembled magnets because a much less effective magnetic field may be applied to them. This is particularly true for the rare earth permanent magnets because they usually need a much higher magnetic field to be fully magnetized than alnico or ferrite magnets. To obtain optimum magnetic properties, the required minimum magnetizing fields for SmCo5, Sm2TM17 and Nd2Fe14B magnets were reported as 25-30 kOe, 45-60 kOe and 25-30 kOe, respectively. If the required magnetizing field for full saturation could be lowered, the effective utilization of magnetic properties would be maximized and the magnetic design option could be expanded with reduced restrictions. To meet this demand, we have sought to lower the field required for full magnetic saturation, and found that an increase in Dy content in R-(Fe,Co,Cu)-B type magnets lowers the field required for full saturation as well as improves the temperature stability. By increasing the Hci with Dy addition from 14 kOe to 24 and 34 kOe, the field required for full magnetic saturation decreases from about 20 to 15 and 10 kOe, respectively. This dual benefit will open up new application areas with more freedom for magnet design options. The mechanism for the lower magnetizing fields will be discussed. (orig.)