Investigation of the ferromagnetic order in crystalline and amorphous Fe2Zr alloys

We present the study of the ferromagnetic behaviour of crystalline and amorphous samples with identical composition Fe2Zr. The crystalline sample was obtained by arc melting. The two amorphous samples were obtained by mechanical grinding from the intermetallic crystalline phase and by mechanical alloying starting from the elements, respectively. We investigated the magnetic properties of the alloy using Mossbauer spectroscopy and superconducting quantum interference device magnetometry. The values of the Mossbauer parameters are reported and discussed. We present the initial magnetization curves and hysteresis loops. The magnetization behaviour is marked by saturation at low field values with very small values of remanent magnetization and coercive field, indicating that the samples are soft ferromagnets; this feature is more sharpened in the crystal. The mechanically grinded sample is more similar to the crystalline compound than the mechanically alloyed sample. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.