AFM Study and Magnetic Properties of Nanocrystalline Fe73.5-xCrxSi13.5B9Nb3Au1 (x=1~5) Alloys

In this paper, the influences of microstructural and surface morphological developments on the soft magnetic properties and giant magneto-impedance (GMI) effect of the $Fe_{73.5-x}Cr_{x}Si_{13.5}B_{9}Nb_{3}Au_1$ (x = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) alloys have been presented. It was found that the Cr addition slightly decreased the mean grain size of $\alpha-Fe(Si)$ grains. AFM results indicate a large variation of surface morphology of density and size of protrusions along the ribbon plane due to microstructural changes caused by thermal annealing with increasing Cr content. Ultrasoft magnetic properties of the nanocrystallized samples were noticeably enhanced by properly heat treatments at $T_a=540^{\circ}C$ such as an increase of the magnetic permeability and the decrease of coercivity, which is likely due to the formation of nanoscale $\alpha-Fe(Si)$ phase which reduced the magnetoelastic anisotropy of samples. Accordingly, the GMI effect was observed in the annealed samples. The correlation between the microstructure, surface morphology, and soft magnetic properties were explained by nucleation and growth model.