CRYSTALLOGRAPHIC TEXTURE DETERMINATIONS FROM INVERSE SUSCEPTIBILITY MEASUREMENTS

Determination of the quantitative relationship between crystallographi c texture and magnetic properties in advanced permanent magnets may be hampered by complex microstructures, which complicate methods that re ly on diffraction, or by interparticulate interactions, which adversel y affect methods based on magnetic remanence measurements. To this end , new techniques in the determination of texture of bulk permanent mag nets are being explored to overcome these inherent experimental diffic ulties. The analysis of inverse paramagnetic susceptibility measuremen ts constitutes a new method to investigate crystallographic texture. S uch measurements also provide Curie temperature data, which are sensit ive to chemical changes that may have occurred in the magnetic phase d uring processing. The mathematical formalism underlying the analysis o f inverse susceptibility measurements is outlined, and is used to eval uate magnetic measurements taken from a series of Nd2Fe14B magnets tha t have been processed by different means, and thus contain different d egrees of texture. While this method does provide qualitative informat ion concerning the relative crystallographic alignment of magnet sampl es, it needs calibration to obtain an explicit value for a texture ord er parameter. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.