Influence of yttrium on the structure and magnetostriction of Fe83Ga17 alloy

Polycrystalline Fe83Ga17 alloy rods with various amounts of yttrium were prepared by high vacuum induction melting. It is found that yttrium addition has a significant effect on the structure and magnetostriction of Fe83Ga17 alloy. The small addition of yttrium alters the solidification character and the grain shape of Fe83Ga17 alloy, and as a result, columnar grains with the < 100 > preferential direction are produced. Yttrium addition improves the magnetostrictive performance of the as-cast Fe83Ga17 alloy. The magnetostriction values of the as-cast alloy with 0.32at% and 0.64at% yttrium addition go up to 119x10(-6) and 137x10(-6) under 15 MPa compressive stress, respectively. The energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) result shows that almost all of the yttrium atoms exist in the Y2Fe17-xGax phase. A small amount of this kind of secondary phase cannot obviously increase the saturate magnetic field.