Preparation and Physical Properties of Quaternary Mn 2 FeSi 0.5 Al 0.5 Alloy Powders with Heusler and β-Mn Structures.

Manganese-based alloys with the composition Mn2FeZ (Z = Si, Al) have been extensively investigated in recent years due to their potential applications in spintronics. The Mn2FeSi alloy, prepared in the form of ingots, powders, or ribbons, exhibits either a cubic full-Heusler (L21) structure, an inverse-Heusler (XA) structure, or a combination of both. In contrast, the Mn2FeAl alloy has so far been synthesized only in the form of ingots, featuring a primitive cubic (β-Mn type) structure. This study focuses on the new quaternary Mn2FeSi0.5Al0.5 alloy synthesized from pure Mn, Fe, Si, and Al powders via mechanical alloying. The elemental powders were ball-milled for 168 h with a ball-to-powder ratio of 10:1, followed by annealing at 550 °C, 700 °C, and 950 °C for 8 h in an argon protective atmosphere. The results demonstrate that annealing at lower temperatures (550 °C) led to the formation of a Heusler structure with a lattice constant of 0.5739 nm. Annealing at 700 °C resulted in the coexistence of several phases, including the Heusler phase and a newly developed primitive cubic β-Mn structure. Further increasing the annealing temperature to 950 °C completely suppressed the Heusler phase, with the β-Mn structure, having a lattice constant of 0.6281 nm, becoming the dominant phase. These findings confirm the possibility of tuning the structure of Mn2FeSi0.5Al0.5 alloy powder—and thereby its physical properties—by varying the annealing temperature. The sensitivity of magnetic properties to structural changes is demonstrated through magnetization curves and zero-field-cooled/field-cooled curves in the temperature range of 5 K to 300 K. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]