Abstract:

As the demands for energy generation continue to increase, clean energy technologies are crucial. A key component to many of these technologies is the use of permanent magnets (PMs). In the development of PMs, there is a push to move away from the rare earth elements (REEs) commonly used for cheaper, more abundant transition metals. The main challenge with this is understanding how to control the emergence of key magnetic properties such as mangnetocrystalline anisotropy and coercivity in materials that do not contain the f-orbitals found in REE-based magnets. This work by Chamberlain et al. on Li₂(Li_1-xFe_x)N, the model REE-free magnetic material, explores the emergence of large uniaxial magnetocrystalline anisotropy and coercivity due to the single-ion effect of low-coordination iron. A deeper understanding of how to control these properties is invaluable for the design and synthesis of new high-performance REE-free magnetic materials.