Ferromagnetic Mn-based decagonal alloys at room temperature

A decagonal (D) phase was observed in rapidly solidified Mn-based Mn-Al-Ge-B alloys. The composition range for formation of the D-phase is 22 to 28% Al, 12 to 24% Ge and 7 to 17% B for Mn45Al55-x-yGexBy alloys. The D-phase has fine grains 50 to 200 nm in diameter and the periodic lattice spacing along the c axis determined from the electron diffraction pattern is 1.2 nm. The D-phase changes to a crystalline phase after annealing for 60 s at 950 K. The D-alloys exhibit ferromagnetism at room temperature and the saturation magnetization under a held of 18 kOe (J(18)), remanence (B-r) and intrinsic coercive force (H-i(c)) are 21 emu/g, 8 emu/g and 300 Oe, respectively, for Mn45Al25Ge15B15. The ferromagnetic D-alloys have a Curie temperature of 590 K in the as-quenched state and the annealing for 60 s at 950 K causes a decrease in T-c of about 40 K. The occurrence of a ferromagnetic D-phase in Mn-based alloys is important in the future development of ferromagnetic quasicrystalline alloys with high coercive forces which result from the D-structure with strong anisotropy.