Thermomagnetic transitions and coercivity mechanism in bulk composite Nd60Fe30Al10 alloys

The thermomagnetic behaviour (within the temperature range 553-300 K) for the bulk composite Nd60Fe30Al10 alloy is described in terms of a transition from paramagnetic to superferromagnetic state at T=553 K, followed by a ferromagnetic ordering for T<473 K. For the superferromagnetic regime, the alloy thermomagnetic response was associated to a homogeneous distribution of magnetic clusters with mean magnetic moment and size of 1072 μB and 2.5 nm, respectively. For T<473 K, a pinning model of domain walls described properly the alloy coercivity dependence with temperature, from which the domain wall width and the magnetic anisotropy constant were estimated as being of ∼8 nm and ∼105 J/m3, typical values of hard magnetic phases. Results are supported by microstructural and magnetic domain observations.