The effect of temperature on the magnetization reversal mechanism in sintered PrFeB

To understand the effects of nucleation fields and intergranular dipolar interactions on the magnetization reversal mechanism, recoil curves from the major hysteresis loop have been measured on a sample of sintered PrFeB as a function of temperature from 150 to 300 K. At room temperature the reversible magnetization behavior indicates a reversal mechanism of nucleation of domain walls whose motion after nucleation is resisted by dipolar fields. As the temperature is reduced, the coercivity, and hence the nucleation field, is observed to increase while the dipolar fields, dependent on microstructure and saturation magnetization, remain approximately constant. These temperature-dependent changes in the relative magnitudes of the dipolar field and nucleation field cause the reversible magnetization behavior to change from domain wall motion to rotation. This change in behavior is attributed to the supposition that at temperatures where the nucleation field exceeds the dipolar field, once nucleated, domain walls are swept out of the material. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(00)29508-X].