Electronic edition ISSN 1574-0579

Tailoring of functional properties in Fe-based soft magnetic alloys by thermal processing under magnetic field

I. Škorvánek¹ , J. Marcin¹ , M. Capik¹ , M. Varga¹ , J. Turċanová¹ , J. Kováċ¹ , P. Švec² , D. Janiċkoviċ² , F. Kováċ³ , V. Stoyka³

¹ Institute of Experimental Physics, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Watsonova 47, 040 01 Košice, Slovakia
² Institute of Physics, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská cesta 9, 842 28 Bratislava, Slovakia
³ Institute of Material Research, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Watsonova 47, 040 01 Košice, Slovakia

Abstract
Thermal processing of materials in an external magnetic field is employed in order to produce a controllable uniaxial anisotropy in the series of soft magnetic Fe-based alloys. Of particular interest for this work are Fe-Co-Nb-B and Fe-Ni-Nb-B amorphous/nanocrystalline alloys as well as the advanced non-oriented silicon steels with low coercivity. The beneficial effects of heat treatment under magnetic field are discussed in terms of the improved magnetic softness and the possibility to tune the application-oriented properties of these alloys. Figs 5, Refs 18.