A few atomic percent addition of Mo considerably improves the intrinsic coercivity (HcJ) of Nd-Dy-Fe-Co-B sintered magnets if the Mo content is optimized against B content. It is shown that upgrading of the magnet can be realized by decreasing both Mo and B contents, keeping the optimum Mo-B relation. Dependence of corrosion resistance of both uncoated and aluminum-coated magnets on Co and Nd contents are studied and significant improvement of the corrosion resistance is attributed to formation of an Nd-Co compound, probably Nd3Co.

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Recent progress in the understanding of the texture formation mechanism in the hydrogenation-disproportionation-desorption-recombination (HDDR) process, improvements of stability with regard to thermal and structural losses, and the state-of-the-art performance of both compression and injection molded magnets made from the newly developed anisotropic HDDR powders are reported. Transmission electron microscopy observations of disproportionated Nd–Fe–Co–Ga–Zr–B alloys have revealed the existence of finely dispersed crystallites of Nd2(Fe,Co,Ga)14B which have a common crystallographic orientation. It is proposed that, upon removal of hydrogen, the hydrogen-disproportionated structure recombines from these crystallites to form textured submicron crystallites of the 2:14:1 phase. Using highly anisotropic HDDR powders, energy products (BH)max exceeding 170 kJ/m3 (21 MGOe) have been obtained on compression-molded resin-bonded magnets and 130 kJ/m3 (16 MGOe) on injection-molded ones. High coercivity HDDR powders with an intrinsic coercivity (HcJ) exceeding 1.27 MA/m (16 kOe) have also been obtained by replacing part of Nd with Dy, which enabled improvement of thermal stability. It is shown that the degradation of magnetic performance of resin-bonded HDDR magnets is prevented by eliminating pore formation during the molding process.

Brief reviews on corrosion and coercivity mechanisms of sintered Nd-Fe-B magnets are given. Results of recently undertaken transmission electron microscopic study of Nd15 - Fe78-xCoxB7 sintered magnets (x = 3, 6 and 10) are presented. Micro-beam electron diffraction patterns obtained from Nd-Co phases in these magnets could be indexed according only to an orthorhombic cell of Nd3 Co among the binary Nd-Co compounds for x = 3 to 10. Relations of coercivity and magnetizability of this type of magnets to their microstructure are discussed in connection to the effects of V or Mo addition which are to enhance coercivity and to improve magnetizability. It is suggested that a decrease in the local demagnetization effects resulting from a decrease in the width of the grain size distribution due to these-additives is the origin of the enhancement of coercivity and the improvement of magnetizability.

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