Disclinations and Magnetism in Rare Earth-Transition Metal Hard Magnets

摘要

An important class of magnets, involving rare earth and 3d transition metals and sometimes metalloids, includes Nd sub 2 Fe sub 14 B and Nd sub 2 Fe sub 17 . We have noted a correlation between the local site magnetism in these two compounds and whether those sites lie on nets of so-called major ligands or disclinations, i.e., bond lines shared by six common nearest neighbors. We propose that a criterion for choosing candidate alloys with strong 3d moments is the occurrence of such disclination nets. We have developed a computer program for the calculation of these nets, and using this, several structures having 3d sites with this characteristic have been found. (ERA citation 12:000725)