High-Magnetic-Field Annealing and Coercivity in Sintered Nd-Fe-B Magnets

Results of a systematic study concerned with the high-magnetic-field effects on the coercivity in processing various series of sintered Nd-Fe-B magnets are given. Coercivity enhancement phenomenon was observed in several series of sintered Nd-Fe-B magnets with Cu additive after annealing under magnetic fields of 10 similar to 14 T. A strong correlation was suggested between the field annealing temperature at which maximum coercivity increase was observed and the anomaly temperature in differential scanning calorimetry experiments. We found a linear relation between the room temperature coercivity H-c of the sample annealed at T-a=500 degrees C under magnetic field H-a for a series of samples with different Dy contents, which can be expressed as H-c=H-c(0)+alpha H-a, with H-c(0) being the value for the zero-field-annealed sample and alpha, the coercivity enhancement factor. Although very small, alpha has a positive finite value in samples with 0 mass% and 2 mass% Dy. Significant increase in a value was confirmed for samples with Dy content larger than 6 mass%. This suggests the effects of higher anisotropy in paramagnetic susceptibility of Nd-rich intergranular phase containing Dy. Also introduced is the preliminary results of the grain boundary diffusion process of sinterd Nd-Fe-B samples with surface Dy layer under strong gradient magnetic fields produced by the 18 T superconducting magnets.