High Effective Permeability and Low Power Loss of FeSiAl/Al₂O₃/ZnO SMC for High Frequency Application

Abstract

Soft magnetic composites (SMCs) are key materials in electronic devices. Conventional SMCs incorporate too much insulating material in order to reduce eddy current loss at high frequency, resulting in severe magnetic dilution and demagnetization field, which leads to deterioration of the magnetic performance. In this paper, ZnO precursor is homogeneously deployed on the surface of FeSiAl, which in situ generates a thin and dense Al2O3 layer on the surface of FeSiAl through the interfacial solid phase reaction between Al and O atoms during annealing process. Meanwhile, ferromagnetic ZnO layer is simultaneously obtained due to the loss of O. The formed Al2O3/ZnO layers effectively reduce power loss and endow high frequency stability with less influence on effective permeability. Finally, FeSiAl/ZnO‐0.4% SMC exhibits low power loss of 83.2 mW cm−3 (50 mT/100 kHz), high effective permeability of 92, and cut‐off frequency as high as 40 MHz. This study provides an efficient route for high performance SMCs and broadens high frequency application of soft magnetic devices.