FeCo coating on SmCo5 nanochips by a sonochemical method

Sonomechanical synthesis method is used in this study to deposit soft magnetic FeCo coating on hard magnetic SmCo₅ nanochips. The hard magnetic nanochips are prepared by surfactant-assisted high-energy ball milling. SEM, EDX, and XRD are used for structural and elemental analysis of the core-shell nanocomposites. Magnetic measurement results show that an increase in FeCo content leads to an increase in saturation magnetization while the coercivity decreases with increasing soft phase content. An enhanced remanence is observed which indicates the exchange coupling between the soft and hard magnetic phases of the nanocomposite. It is also shown that the apparent difference of the magnetic hysteresis loops and XRD patterns measured parallel and perpendicular to the aligning field direction suggests strong magnetic anisotropy.