Magnetoelastic domains and magnetic field-induced strains in ferromagnetic shape memory alloys by phase-field simulation

Magnetoelastic domains in ferromagnetic shape memory alloys evolve through either variant rearrangement or magnetization rotation, resulting in a large or a small magnetic field-induced strain depending on the magnitude of applied compressive stress. These phenomena are simulated in this letter using an unconventional phase-field model motivated by energy-minimizing multirank laminated domain structures. The results agree well with experiments, and confirm the analysis of Ma and Li [Appl. Phys. Lett. 90, 172504 (2007)] based on an energy minimization theory. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.