La-Fe-B: A Permanent Magnet without Critical Rare Earth Elements

What is it about?

High-performance permanent magnet Neodymium-Iron-Boron (Nd-Fe-B) has been widely applied in industries such as electric vehicles and consumer electronics such as smartphones. However, it requires resources-scarce and expensive rare earth elements such as Neodymium, Praseodymium, etc. The relatively resource-rich Lanthanum has the potential to partially replace Neodymium in Nd-Fe-B. However, La-Fe-B is not stable and has inferior magnetic properties compared with Nd-Fe-B. We have studied the phase stability and magnetic properties from the first principle calculation and micromagnetic simulation. Also, we have discussed the pathway to improve the phase stability and magnetic properties of the La-Fe-B magnet.

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Why is it important?

Recently, more research attention is paid to high-performance magnets without or reduced critical rare earth elements. One choice is the La-Fe-B type magnet. The main obstacles to developing La-Fe-B magnets are thermal stability and inferior magnetic properties of La-Fe-B. In this work, we elucidate the reason for poor phase stability and inferior magnetic properties and recommend the potential approach to improve the stability and magnetic performance of the magnet, which is important for developing the La-Fe-B magnet.

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