Exchange-Coupled Nanocomposite Permanent Magnets

Exchange-coupled nanocomposite magnets are a new type of permanent magnetic materials. Large amounts of theoretical and experimental research have been carried out in the past two decades in understanding the inter-phase exchange interactions and in processing bulk nanocomposite magnets with enhanced energy products. This chapter reviews recent advancements in both the fundamental research and the materials processing technologies. Details in the new findings about the effects of soft phase properties and interface conditions on the hard/soft phase exchange interactions are presented. Various methods for characterizing the inter-phase exchange coupling are reviewed. In materials processing aspects, the development of the bottom-up approaches is discussed. Novel methodology for nanoparticle synthesis including the salt-matrix annealing and surfactant-assisted ball milling is described. Unconventional compaction techniques including warm compaction and dynamic compaction are recommended because they can be used to retain the desired nanoscale morphology for effective exchange coupling in the nanocomposites. At the end of this chapter, perspectives on fabrication of anisotropic nanocomposite magnets are given.