A COMPARATIVE-STUDY OF MECHANICALLY ALLOYED AND MECHANICALLY MILLED ND10FE84B6

A comparative study has been made of the structures and magnetic prope rties of Nd10Fe84B6 prepared by mechanical alloying using elemental po wders as starting materials and by mechanical milling of the alloy. Bo th milling procedures resulted in a mixture of alpha-Fe and an amorpho us phase, with the fraction of alpha-Fe phase being significantly high er in the as-milled mechanically alloyed powder than in the mechanical milled counterpart. Annealed mechanically alloyed powders showed a so mewhat coarser and nonuniform grain structure in comparison with annea led mechanically milled powders. The structural differences of mechani cally milled and mechanically alloyed powders resulted in higher reman ences and coercivities being exhibited by the mechanically milled powd ers after annealing. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.