Final Report Summary - EXMAMA (Exploring new magnetic materials from first-principles)
In this project, we investigated superhard magnets using recently developed theoretical tools. Superhard magnets are materials with large saturation magnetization and very high coercive field. Our works builds on 2 years of developing algorithms to be used in a computational high-throughput fashion that allows to discover novel rare-earth free hard-magnetic materials.
These materials are extremely important and play an important role in many crucial technologies from electric motors and electric generators for wind turbines, to hard drives and magnetic resonance imaging. The most common examples of such super magnets are the samarium-cobalt magnet (SmCo5 and Sm2Co17), a material developed in the early 1970s with a very high coercivity, and the neodymium magnet (Nd2Fe14B), the most widely-used type of rare-earth magnet developed in 1982 to replace the expensive samarium-cobalt magnet. These latter are the strongest type of permanent magnets known to date.
We searched for new, chemically stable compositions and crystal phases of magnetic materials. As a result, we found rare-earth free compositions comparable on magnetic anisotropy energy to the state-of-the-art hard-mangnets. If our prediction can be confirmed, these environmentally friendly materials could lead to a drastic change in the world-wide industry of magnets and to a decrease of our imports on rare-earths. The main outcome of this project is undoubtedly the deep understanding and the knowledge generated from the analysis of the computational data generated. This will lead in the near future to further discoveries in the field of magnetism and superconductivity. And with the rapid advance of experimental techniques and innovative methods of synthesis, we expect the synthesis of the promising materials predicted here.
These materials are extremely important and play an important role in many crucial technologies from electric motors and electric generators for wind turbines, to hard drives and magnetic resonance imaging. The most common examples of such super magnets are the samarium-cobalt magnet (SmCo5 and Sm2Co17), a material developed in the early 1970s with a very high coercivity, and the neodymium magnet (Nd2Fe14B), the most widely-used type of rare-earth magnet developed in 1982 to replace the expensive samarium-cobalt magnet. These latter are the strongest type of permanent magnets known to date.
We searched for new, chemically stable compositions and crystal phases of magnetic materials. As a result, we found rare-earth free compositions comparable on magnetic anisotropy energy to the state-of-the-art hard-mangnets. If our prediction can be confirmed, these environmentally friendly materials could lead to a drastic change in the world-wide industry of magnets and to a decrease of our imports on rare-earths. The main outcome of this project is undoubtedly the deep understanding and the knowledge generated from the analysis of the computational data generated. This will lead in the near future to further discoveries in the field of magnetism and superconductivity. And with the rapid advance of experimental techniques and innovative methods of synthesis, we expect the synthesis of the promising materials predicted here.