Determination of the crystallographic texture of sintered PrFeB magnets based on X-ray diffraction patterns

Abstract

An alternative method for determining the degree of crystallographic alignment (〈cos Θ〉) of the magnetic Pr2Fe14B phase (Φ) is proposed. The method is based on the relative X-ray diffracted intensities of the Φ planes of sintered magnets with and without texture. The degree of crystallographic alignment is also determined by X-ray pole figures using the (0 0 4) reflection and considered as a standard reference for comparison. The method is applied to Pr16Fe76B8 magnets with 0.51≤〈cos Θ〉≤0.97. The difference between the crystallographic alignments determined by these two methods is 3% within the experimental error. The advantages and limitations of using X-ray diffraction patterns to quantitatively evaluate the texture of sintered magnets are also discussed.