Overcoming of energy barrier for irreversible magnetization in nanocomposite magnets

The irreversible magnetization occurs mainly in hard grains in nanocomposite magnets, and the domain wall involves a little part of defect region in irreversible magnetization due to the self-interaction. The investigation on thermal activation shows that the defect region involved in domain wall becomes narrower due to the TiNb addition in Pr2Fe14B/α-Fe magnets. The defect region augments the energy density in the negative direction of domain wall to overcome the energy barrier of perfect hard region. The soft phase, exchange-coupled with defect region at hard grain outer-layer, promotes magnetization reversal in defect region by exchange coupling. While the defect region plays a role as a ladder to overcome the energy barrier, resulting in the decrease of coecivity more or less depending upon the width and anisotropy of defect region.