Construction of high performance nanocomposites based on a shape anisotropic soft phase: A micromagnetic simulation study

Nanocomposite permanent magnets are considered as a strong candidate for the next generation of high-performance permanent magnet materials due to their ultra-high theoretical magnetic energy product. In this paper, a nanocomposite theoretical model based on the shape anisotropy of the soft phase (Fe65Co35) is constructed to guide the improvement of coercivity, the lack of which has become a critical problem in improving the performance of Nd-Fe-B nanocomposites further. The results of micromagnetic simulation show that adding a shape anisotropic soft phase to nanocomposites can effectively improve coercivity, delay nucleation during the magnetization reversal process, and help obtain a demagnetization curve with high squareness. When the length size of the soft phase ds ≤ 21 nm and the aspect ratio of the soft phase I = 5 for the Nd2Fe14B/Fe65Co35 nanocomposites, almost square demagnetization curves can be obtained, particularly when ds = 21 nm, the size of the soft phase is 21 × 21 × 105 nm3, the content of the soft phase is 42.1 vol. %, and the Nd2Fe14B/Fe65Co35 nanocomposite achieves a maximum magnetic energy product of 94.4 MGOe. In addition, the results also show that, compared with the cubic nanocomposite model ( I = 1), the larger size of the soft phase can be accommodated into the nanocomposites by the addition of shape anisotropy, on the premise of ensuring the soft–hard coupling effect. Our design provides a new strategy and approach for preparing high-performance nanocomposite permanent magnets.