The effects of local versus bulk disorder on the magnetic behavior of stoichiometric Ni3Al

The magnetic behaviors of both ball-milled and cold-rolled stoichiometric Ni3Al have been investigated both before and after annealing using X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry and vibrating sample magnetometery. Mechanical alloying produced a fully disordered structure while cold rolling produced only local disorder. Hence, the enthalpy of reordering was found to be different in the two cases. It was also found that whereas annealing decreased the saturation magnetization for the milled Ni3Al, it increased the magnetization for the rolled material. The origin of this behavior is discussed.