REMANENCE ENHANCEMENT IN NANOSTRUCTURED MELT-SPUN SM(FE0.209CU0.061ZR0.025CO0.704)7.61

Ribbons of an industrial, high coercivity grade of Sm2Co17 alloy have been produced by melt spinning at very high substrate velocities. X-ra y diffraction has shown the resultant material to be single phase and nanostructured, with grain sizes ranging to below 30 nm. The remanence , J(r), is consequently enhanced due to ferromagnetic exchange couplin g, with values up to 0.75 T being observed. This corresponds to J(r)/J (s) (where J(s) is the saturation polarisation) up to 0.7. Although th e intrinsic coercivity is only moderate (up to 500 kA/m), it is still sufficiently high to give maximum energy product values up to 70 kJ/m3 .