Rare earth iron nitrogen alloy material, method for producing rare earth iron nitrogen alloy material, rare earth iron alloy material and method for producing rare earth iron alloy material

摘要

The present invention provides a rare earth-iron-nitrogen-based alloy material which can produce a rare earth magnet having excellent magnetic characteristics and a method for producing the same, a rare earth-iron-based alloy material suitable as a raw material of the rare earth magnet and a method for producing the alloy material. A rare earth-iron-based alloy material is heat-treated in a hydrogen-containing atmosphere to produce a multi-phase powder 1 in which a phase 3 of a hydrogen compound of a rare earth element is dispersedly present in a phase 2 of an iron-containing material. A powder compact 4 produced by compression-molding the multi-phase powder 1 is heat-treated in a vacuum with a magnetic field of 3 T or more applied, thereby forming a rare earth-iron-based alloy material 5. The rare earth-iron-based alloy material 5 is heat-treated in a nitrogen atmosphere with a magnetic field of 3.5 T or more applied, thereby forming a rare earth-iron-nitrogen-based alloy material 6. The rare earth-iron-based alloy material 5 has a structure in which a crystal of a rare earth-iron-based alloy is oriented in the c-axis direction. The rare earth-iron-nitrogen-based alloy material 6 composed of an ideal nitride can be formed by nitriding the rare earth-iron-based alloy material 5 having this oriented structure with the magnetic field applied, and a rare earth magnet 7 having excellent magnetic characteristics can be formed.