High anisotropic NdFeB submicro/nanoflakes prepared by surfactant-assisted ball milling at low temperature

Hard magnetic NdFeB submicro/nanoflakes were successfully prepared by surfactant-assisted ball milling at low temperature (SABMLT) by specially using 2-methyl pentane and trioctylamine (TOA) as solvent and surfactant, respectively. Influences of the amount of TOA and milling temperature on the crystal structure, morphology and magnetic performances of the as-prepared NdFeB powders were investigated systematically. There is significant difference on morphology between the NdFeB powders milled at room and low temperature. The NdFeB powders with flaky morphology could be obtained even with a small amount of TOA by SABMLT, which could not be achieved by surfactant-assisted ball milling at room temperature (SABMRT). The better crystallinity, better grain alignment, higher coercivity, larger saturation magnetization and remanence ratio were achieved in the samples prepared by SABMLT. Furthermore, the final NdFeB powders prepared by SABMLT possessed a lower amount of residual TOA than those prepared by SABMRT. It was demonstrated that SABMLT is a promising way to fabricate rare-earth-transition metal nanoflakes with high anisotropy for permanent magnetic materials. The effective method of preparing NdFeB flakes by lowering temperature will be also useful to fabricate flakes of other functional materials.