Microwires coated by glass: A new family of soft and hard magnetic materials

Abstract

The Taylor–Ulitovski technique was employed for fabrication of tiny ferromagnetic amorphous and nanocrystalline metallic wires covered by an insulating glass coating with magnetic properties of great technological interest. A single and large Barkhausen jump was observed for microwires with positive magnetostriction. Negative magnetostriction microwires exhibited almost unhysteretic behavior with an easy axis transverse to the wire axis. Enhanced magnetic softness (initial permeability, μι, up to 14000) and giant magneto impedance (GMI) effect (up to 140% at 10 MHz) was observed in amorphous CoMnSiB microwires with nearly zero magnetostriction after adequate heat treatment. Large sensitivity of GMI and magnetic characteristics on external tensile stresses was observed. Upon heat treatment, FeSiBCuNb amorphous microwires devitrificated into a nanocrystalline structure with enhanced magnetic softness. The magnetic bistability was observed even after the second crystallization process (increase of switching field by more than 2 orders of magnitude up to 5.5 kA/m). Hard magnetic materials were obtained as a result of decomposition of metastable phases in Co–Ni–Cu and Fe–Ni–Cu microwires fabricated by Taylor–Ulitovski technique when the coercivity increased up to 60 kA/m. A magnetic sensor based on the magnetic bistability was designed.