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In this study, the non-isothermal kinetics of the martensitic transition from 14M modulated martensite to austenite phase in Ni55Fe19Ga26 ribbons obtained by melt-spinning has been analyzed. The proximity of the martensitic transition to room temperature makes it very sensitive to pressure and subtle differences for different pieces of the ribbon (ascribed to stresses stored in the ribbon during its rapid solidification process). Despite the dispersion in the characteristic parameters of the transition, a general behavior is observed with a decreasing activation energy as the heating rate increases due to the nucleation driven character of the transition. It has been shown that a first-order autocatalysis can describe the temperature evolution of the austenite fraction using only two experimental temperatures. Predicted curves are in good agreement with experimental data

The influence of the fabrication method on the magnetostructural properties of a Ni55Fe19Ga26 Heusler alloy, obtained both as a ribbon, by melt-spinning, and as a pellet, by arc-melting, has been analyzed. It has been found that, while the arc-melting technique leads to the precipitation of the gamma phase and to a non-modulated martensite structure, the alloy prepared by melt-spinning presents a fully 14M modulated martensitic structure at room temperature. The tetragonal non-modulated martensite in the arc-melted bulk sample transforms into the 14M structure after a long thermal treatment (at 1073 K for 24 h) and subsequent quenching. Characteristic temperatures of the martensitic transformation are higher for melt-spun ribbons than for bulk sample, due to the precipitation of the gamma phase and consequent different martensite composition. However, while the martensitic transformation temperature is practically constant in the case of the bulk sample, it changes by 150 K in the case of the ribbon sample submitted to the same thermal treatment applied to bulk samples. Finally, it was found that the martensitic transformation occurs in the paramagnetic regime of both types of samples.

Devitrification of mechanically alloyed amorphous FeZr at. % compound consists on a two-step process: amorphous → amorphous + bcc Fe + FeZr → FeZr + FeZr. This sequence is inferred from the evolution of the Mössbauer spectra, the thermomagnetic experiments and the X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns. Hyperfine parameters for both intermetallics have been obtained from Mössbauer spectroscopy in correlation with the phase identification from XRD results. The broadening of the stable compositional range of FeZr intermetallic above 1000 K is responsible for a strong dependence of the phase fractions on heating and cooling rates. Despite the overlapping of the two processes involved in the devitrification, the individual Avrami exponents of each one have been estimated.

Ribbons of a Ni55Fe19Ga26 Heusler alloy were prepared by melt spinning technique. The effect of pressure on magnetostructural transitions was studied comparing as-spun ribbons to ribbons previously submitted to an axial pressure and to powder obtained from manually grinded as-spun ribbons. The martensitic transformation present in the as-spun ribbon almost vanishes after pulverization. The structural change driven by mechanical treatment is a stress-induced intermartensitic transformation from a 14 M modulated to a non-modulated tetragonal (NM) structure. There is a progressive change from the structure of as-spun samples to that of the pulverized one in samples submitted to axial pressures as it increases.

The presence of a distribution of transition temperatures (DTT) is ubiquitous in materials science. It is common to ascribe deviations from theoretical pure-phase behavior to this fact. To adapt the di erent pure phase models to systems with a DTT, the parameters of such distribution must be known or at least estimated. In this review, the di erent sources for the existence of such distributions and their e ects on magnetothermal properties are summarized. In addition, di erent models proposed to extract the parameters of the corresponding DTT are discussed and extended, starting from Weiss model, to account for other phenomenologies. Experimental results on amorphous Fe-Nb-B and intermetallic MnCo(Fe)Ge systems are also reported

Mechanical alloying using a planetary ball mill allowed us to obtain two homogeneous systems formed by units with nanometer size and MnCo0.8Fe0.2Ge1-xSix stoichiometry (x = 0 and 0.5). The phase evolution of the systems with the milling time was analyzed using X-ray diffraction. Thermal stability of the final products was studied using differential scanning calorimetry. Room temperature 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy was used to follow the changes in the Fe environments. A paramagnetic Co-based amorphous phase developed in both alloys as milling progressed. However, while the presence of Si stabilized the Mn-type phase, mechanical recrystallization was observed in a Si-free composition leading to the formation of a MnCo(Fe)Ge intermetallic (Pnma space group) with a crystal size of 7 ± 1 nm. Mössbauer results indicate that Fe atoms migrate from the initial bcc phase to the amorphous and intermetallic phases.