Investigation of phase selection hierarchy in Mn-Al alloys

Abstract

Primarily attributed to the formation of the ferromagnetic tau-phase, near equiatomic composition of Mn-Al have recently received much attention in permanent magnet industry. Several mechanisms have been proposed in literature for the tau-phase formation but controversy still arises regarding the dominating mode. In the current work, MnAl-based alloys having different compositions in a range between Mn50.5Al49.5 and Mn57Al43 have been studied by means of in-situ high energy X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and magnetic measurements. Synchrotron and DSC experiments showed the dependence of the tau-MnAl on the intermediate disordered epsilon'-phase. Alloys having 53.4 at% or less Mn (S1, S2) followed a transformation route of epsilon+epsilon'-> tau ->beta+gamma(2) upon annealing. Alloys having more than 53.4 at% of Mn had only epsilon-phase. High energy X-ray diffraction patterns showed that epsilon-phase directly transformed into stable phases in the absence of epsilon'-phase. It is observed that epsilon' not only promoted the ferromagnetic tau-phase but also stabilized it by delaying the nucleation of stable phases.