Nanocrystalline Fe and Fe-riched Fe-Ni through electrodeposition

There is a constant need for new softer magnetic materials, especially with high saturation moments. A number of studies have shown that by decreasing the average crystal size of a material below 20 nm, it is possible to redu ce its magnetic losses. This was clearly demonstrated in nanostructured mag netic alloys based on the thermal crystallization of amorphous ribbons. How ever, this demonstration has been very difficult for other nanostructured m aterials mainly because most of them are based on powder processing. This s tudy presents the synthesis and properties of nanostructured magnetic mater ials produced by pulsed electrodeposition. Surprisingly compared to other s ynthesis techniques, electrodeposition has received little attention for pr oducing large quantities of fully dense nanostructured materials. in this w ork we describe some of the electrodeposition parameters leading to the pro duction of nanostructured Fe and Fe-riched Fe-Ni alloys. Some magnetic prop erties obtained using a vibrating sample magnetometer are also presented (C ) 1999 Acta Metallurgica Inc.