ExMaMa · Exploring new magnetic materials from first-principles
FP7 — People (Marie Curie Actions)
- Duration
- 2013-05-01 → 2015-04-30
- EU contribution
- €161,969
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MC-IEF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Exploring new magnetic materials from first-principles
In this project, we investigated superhard magnets using recently developed theoretical tools. Superhard magnets are materials with large saturation magnetization and very high coercive field. Our works builds on 2 years of developing algorithms to be used in a computational high-throughput fashion that allows to discover novel rare-earth free hard-magnetic materials. These materials are extremely important and play an important role in many crucial technologies from electric motors and electric generators for wind turbines, to hard drives and magnetic resonance imaging. The most common examples of such super magnets are the samarium-cobalt magnet (SmCo5 and Sm2Co17), a material developed in the early 1970s with a very high coercivity, and the neodymium magnet (Nd2Fe14B), the most widely-used type of rare-earth magnet developed in 1982 to replace the expensive samarium-cobalt magnet. These latter are the strongest type of permanent magnets known to date. We searched for new, chemically stable compositions and crystal phases of magnetic materials. As a result, we found rare-earth free compositions comparable on magnetic anisotropy energy to the state-of-the-art hard-mangnets. If our prediction can be confirmed, these environmentally friendly materials could lead to a drastic change in the world-wide industry of magnets and to a decrease of our imports on rare-earths. The main outcome of this project is undoubtedly the deep understanding and the knowledge generated from the analysis of the computational data generated. This will lead in the near future to further discoveries in the field of magnetism and superconductivity. And with the rapid advance of experimental techniques and innovative methods of synthesis, we expect the synthesis of the promising materials predicted here.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
In this project, we propose to investigate super-magnets using recently developed theoretical tools. Super-magnets are materials with a very high magnetization density that find several technological applications, from electric motors and electric generators for wind turbines, to hard drives and magnetic resonance imaging.The basic problem concerning these magnets is the presence of rare-earths elements. However, mining rare-earths is very polluting, and cheap rare-earths rapidly made China the sole world supplier. It is therefore clear that from an environmental, economical, and political point of view it is essential to eliminate, or at least to reduce, our dependence on rare-earths.The final objective of this project is to design magnetic materials that have, at the same time, a high magnetization density (of the order of magnitude of existing rare-earth magnets), but with a reduced content of rare-earths. To reach this goal, we will proceed using a spiral bottom-up approach to the design of materials, based on state-of-the-art structural prediction tools relying on ab initio calculations.As a side result of this search we will develop a very detailed theoretical knowledge of the phase diagrams of the rare-earth magnets, both as a function of composition (by performing substitutions, for example) and as a function of applied pressure.The fellowship will allow the researcher to become an expert in the development and application of novel theoretical and computational approaches in the evolving field of magnetic materials. Furthermore, he will be trained in key aspects that will be essential in his future career, such as scientific code programming, many-body physics, soft-skills, etc.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN EV · MUNCHENCoordinatorGermany
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union