Comparative study of the structural and magnetic properties of bulk and nano-sized Fe2CoAl

The structural and magnetic properties of as-melted and high energy ball milled sample have been studied by X-ray diffraction, Fe-57 Mossbauer spectroscopy and DC magnetization. The observed properties are compared to that of the bulk sample. The magnetic hyperfine fields are related to structural disorder. There is a very good enhancement of bulk magnetic properties in the nano-sized samples, the most notable one being a dramatic increase in saturation magnetization and Curie temperature of the sample and are explained in terms of structural disordering and size effect.