Attractive-domain-wall-pinning controlled Sm-Co magnets overcome the coercivity-remanence trade-off

Traditional approaches for increasing the intrinsic coercivity of magnets typically come at the expense of remanence, a dilemma known as intrinsic coercivity-remanence trade-off, leading to a substantial reduction of maximum energy product. New metallurgical processing might offer the possibility of overcoming this trade-off. Here, we achieve a combination of an intrinsic coercivity of 26.9 kOe, a remanence of 11.2 kG, and a maximum energy product up to 26.6 MGOe, which surpasses most of conventional Sm-Co based permanent magnets, by manipulating the gradient of domain wall energy landscape of constituent phases to realize the attractive domain wall pinning in Sm(Co,Fe,Cu,Zr)(z) permanent magnets. Using powerful atomic-scale analysis technique known as atom probe tomography and micromagnetic simulations, we reveal that an enlarged attractive domain wall pinning strength results in the substantial coercivity enhancement with little sacrifice of remanence and maximum energy product in the Cu-particle-alloyed magnet. These results provide atomic-level insights into the coercivity mechanism of rare earth permanent magnets, with the methodology offering exciting possibilities for quantitative analyses and prediction between compositions and magnetic properties of other magnetic materials. (C) 2018 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.