Sulfur doping effect on microstructure and magnetic properties of Nd-Fe-B sintered magnets

In this paper, the effects of sulfur (S) doping on microstructure and magnetic properties of Nd-Fe-B sintered magnets were studied. With 0.2 wt% S doping, the melting point of the Nd-rich eutectic phases decreased from 1038 K to 1021 K. Clear and continuous grain boundary phases were also formed with smaller grain size. The average grain size was 7.83 μm, which was approximately 1.3 μm smaller than that of the undoped magnets. The coercivity enhancement was attributed to boundary microstructure modification and grain size optimization. The coercivity of the 0.2 wt% S-doped magnets increased from 15.54 kOe to 16.67 kOe, with slight changes of the remanence and the maximum magnetic energy production. The magnetic properties of the overdoped magnets deteriorated, due to the reduction in density and decrease of the volume fraction of the main phase. Globular S precipitates in the Nd-rich triple junctions were hexagonal Nd2O2S phase and tetragonal NdS2 phase. S addition allows reducing Dy usage in magnets with comparable magnetic properties.