Chapter 7 Magnetostrictive rare earth-Fe2 compounds

This chapter provides an overview of the magnetoelastic properties of the highly magnetostrictive rare earth-Fe2 alloys. The chapter describes a general treatment of magnetostriction for the cases of hexagonal and cubic symmetry, which is applicable to the rare earth elements and the rare earth-iron compounds. The chapter presents the magnetostriction of binary rare earth-iron alloys and the magnetostriction of single crystal and polycrystal RFe2 compounds are compared to other magnetostrictive materials at room temperature. The chapter discusses a possible source of startling magnetostriction anisotropy, measurements of magnetization, sublattice magnetization, and magnetic anisotropy, and the role of intrinsic as well as extrinsic effects. It reports the effects of the strong magnetoelastic coupling on sound velocities and elastic moduli and observes extraordinarily large ∆E effects and changes in sound velocity in single crystals, polycrystals, and amorphous rare earth-Fe2 alloys. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the recent measurements of linear and volume magnetostriction on the amorphous form of the RFe2 alloys.