Abstract
This study continues previous work on off stoichiometric Fe-Pd alloys using a combined reaction strategy during thermomechanical processing [1,2]. Severe plastic deformation of the initial disordered fcc gamma phase (γ), followed by heat treatment in the two phase field produces a nano-composite ferromagnet comprised of soft alpha-Fe/ferrite in a high-anisotropy L10 FePd matrix. The length scale and morphology of the transformation products have been characterized using x-ray diffraction, and scanning and transmission electron microscopy. The transformed microstructures exhibit strong texture retention similar to the stoichiometric alloy suggesting a massive ordering mode. The alloy has shown a proclivity to exchange couple at a length scale not in agreement with proposed theories of exchange coupling [3,4]. The magnetic properties were measured using standard vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM). This research has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF-DMR).
