Multistep severe plastic deformation to achieve non-rare earth bulk magnets with high α-MnBi phase content

The ferromagnetic α-MnBi phase as non-rare earth magnetic material has gained increasing interest, but the fabrication of large volumes containing a significant amount of α-MnBi is still challenging. Targeting successful processing strategies, we apply multistep severe plastic deformation with intermediate magnetic field assisted annealing. The subsequent severe plastic deformation renewed the high amount of material defects and lead to microstructural refinement of the previously formed α-MnBi phase. Thus α-MnBi phase content is enhanced during final annealing. Second, the magnetic coercivity increases. These results suggest that further optimization will pave the way towards non-rare-earth bulk magnetic materials with enhanced α-MnBi phase content.