Effect of milling time on the morphology and magnetic properties of SmCo5 nanoflakes fabricated by surfactant-assisted high-energy ball milling

•Anisotropic magnetic SmCo5 nanoflakes have been fabricated by surfactant-assisted high-energy ball milling (HEBM) processes.•The results show that the smaller and thinner SmCo5 particles can be obtained in the early stage of milling, further prolonged milling time for the smaller particle size distribution and thickness of the SmCo5 particles is limited.•The magnetic reverse process of SmCo5 nanoflakes can be mainly explained by the nucleation model.

Anisotropic magnetic SmCo5 nanoflakes have been fabricated by surfactant-assisted high-energy ball milling (HEBM) processes with different milling times. The influence of the milling time on the particle size distribution, morphology and magnetic properties of these SmCo5 particles was investigated systematically. It is shown that the smaller and thinner SmCo5 particles can be obtained in the early stage of milling, further prolonged milling time for the smaller particle size distribution and thickness of the SmCo5 particles is limited. The coercivity of SmCo5 nanoflakes increased initially with the milling time and then it decreased after reaching the maximum value of 9.2 kOe. The theoretical results for the angular dependence of the nucleation and pinning fields are compared with the angular dependence of the coercive field as measured for oriented SmCo5 nanoflakes. The results show that the magnetic reverse process of SmCo5 nanoflakes can be mainly explained by the nucleation model.