Mössbauer and magnetization studies of mechanically milled nanocrystalline Fe1–xAlx alloys

Abstract

Changes in the magnetic behavior of Fe1–xAlx (x = 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6) powders during mechanical alloying have been studied. The ball milling process leads to formation of solid state reaction assisted by severe plastic deformation because of which crystallite size is reduced and as a result of which interesting magnetic properties are developed. The evolution of magnetic order in high-energy ball-milled Fe–Al solid solution is investigated using 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy and vibrating sample magnetometer. Mössbauer spectra and the hyperfine field distributions of all the samples show the presence of both magnetic and paramagnetic components in the samples. The corresponding bulk magnetization studies also show that the Al rich samples are also ferromagnetic, which can be attributed to the presence of disordered Fe-rich phases due to the non-equilibrium process of alloying. In Fe-rich samples, the formation of an off stoichiometric Fe3Al phase is favored while in the case of Al-rich samples both Al-rich phases and clustering of Fe and Al atoms are present. The systematic variation in the magnetic properties has been qualitatively correlated with the evolution of microstructure, reduction in grain size (obtained using transmission electron microscopy) and enhanced intergranular exchange coupling.