Search

A high-throughput and data-mining search for rare-earth-free permanent magnets is reported for materials containing a 3d and p-element of the Periodic Table. Three of the most promising compounds, Fe 2 C, Mn2MoB4 , and Mn2WB4, were investigated in detail by ab initio electronic structure theory coupled to atomistic spin-dynamics. For these systems doping protocols were also investigated and, in particular, (Fe0.75X0.25)(2) C (X = Mn, Cr, V, and Ti), Mn2XB4 (X = Mo and W) along with Mn 2 (X0.5Y0.5)B-4 (X,Y = Mo, W, Ta, Cr) are suggested here as promising candidates for applications as permanent magnets.

With the recent developments in crystal structure prediction, databases of new (not previously synthesized) materials are being created. One of these databases contains more than a million entries with the distance to the Convex Hull predicted by crystal-graph attention networks. Hence, stable and metastable materials can be extracted and then investigated for any desired properties. A high-throughput and data-mining approach we previously developed to search for rare-earth-free permanent magnets was applied to these compounds. As a result, four promising candidates for novel rare-earth-free permanent magnets were discovered with high magnetization, high uniaxial magnetocrystalline anisotropy, and high Curie temperature - Ta3ZnFe8, AlFe2, Co3Ni2, and Fe3Ge. The materials were investigated in more detail and all were verified to be dynamically stable.

The atomic and magnetic structures of Mn(Co,Ge)2 are reported herein. The system crystallizes in the space group P63/mmc as a superstructure of the MgZn2-type structure. The system exhibits two magnetic transitions with associated magnetic structures, a ferromagnetic (FM) structure around room temperature, and an incommensurate structure at lower temperatures. The FM structure, occurring between 193 and 329 K, is found to be a member of the magnetic space group P63/mm′c′. The incommensurate structure found below 193 K is helical with propagation vector k = (0 0 0.0483). Crystallographic results are corroborated by magnetic measurements and ab initio calculations.

A series of compounds with compositions Fe5Si1-xGexB2 were synthesised and their structural and magnetic properties were investigated. The Mo5SiB2-type structure with tetragonal I4/mcm space group is maintained for all compounds with x < 0.15, which is estimated as the compositional limit of the system. The unit cell pa-rameters expand with Ge content before reaching a plateau of a = 5.5581(1) and c = 10.3545(1) angstrom at x = 0.15. The saturation magnetisation (MS) decreased slightly with increasing Ge content whilst the magnetocrystalline anisotropy energy (MAE) remains almost unaffected. The Curie temperature for all compounds studied is at 790 K whilst the spin-reorientation temperature shows suppression from 172 K to 101 K where x = 0.15. Ab Initio calculations reveal an increase in MAE for compositions up to x = 0.25 and a decreased magnitude of MAE of-0.14 MJ/m3 for the hypothetical compound Fe5GeB2 relative to the parent compound Fe5SiB2.

The Ce2Fe17 intermetallic compound has been studied intensely for several decades; its low-temperature state is reported experimentally either as ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic by different authors, with a measured ordering temperature ranging within a hundred Kelvin. The existing theoretical investigations overestimate the experimental total magnetic moment of Ce2Fe17 by 20-40% and predict a ferromagnetic ground state. By means of first-principle electronic structure calculations, we show that the total magnetic moment of Ce2Fe17 can be reproduced within the Local Density Approximation while functionals based on the Generalized Gradient Approximation fail. Atomistic spin dynamics simulations are shown to capture the change in the magnetic state of Ce2Fe17 with temperature, and closely replicate the reported helical structure that appears in some of the experimental investigations.

A new class of rare-earth-free permanent magnets is proposed. The parent compound of this class is Co3Mn2Ge, and its discovery is the result of first principles theory combined with experimental synthesis and characterisation. The theory is based on a high-throughput/data-mining search among materials listed in the ICSD database. From ab-initio theory of the defect free material it is predicted that the saturation magnetization is 1.71 T, the uniaxial magnetocrystalline anisotropy is 1.44 MJ/m3, and the Curie temperature is 700 K. Co3Mn2Ge samples were then synthesized and characterised with respect to structure and magnetism. The crystal structure was found to be the MgZn2-type, with partial disorder of Co and Ge on the crystallographic lattice sites. From magnetization measurements a saturation polarization of 0.86 T at 10 K was detected, together with a uniaxial magnetocrystalline anisotropy constant of 1.18 MJ/m3, and the Curie temperature of TC = 359 K. These magnetic properties make Co3Mn2Ge a very promising material as a rare-earth free permanent magnet, and since we can demonstrate that magnetism depends critically on the amount of disorder of the Co and Ge atoms, a further improvement of the magnetism is possible. We demonstrate here that the class of compounds based on T3Mn2X (T = Co or alloys between Fe and Ni; X = Ge, Al or Ga) in the MgZn2 structure type, form a new class of rare-earth free permanent magnets with very promising performance.

We present an application of a high-throughput search of new rare-earth free permanent magnets focusing on 3d-5d transition metal compounds. The search involved a part of the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database, together with tailored search criteria and electronic structure calculations of magnetic properties. Our results suggest that it is possible to find candidates for rare-earth free permanent magnets using a data-mining/datafiltering approach. The most promising candidates identified here are Pt2FeNi, Pt2FeCu, and W2FeB2. We suggest these materials to be a good platform for further investigations in the search of novel rare-earth free permanent magnets.