Crystal Structures and Magnetic Interactions of Magnetic Materials

Dear Colleagues,

Rare earth free permanent magnets are being actively studied for their potential as a future class of magnetic materials, capable of operating at higher temperatures and in challenging corrosion environments, such as renewable energy applications. Of these classes, novel magnets without rare earth components show promise, as they are cost-effective and have interesting magnetic properties. Sustained efforts are being made nowadays in the search for new classes of magnets, motivated by the continuous depletion of rare earth oxide resources and the need for improved magnetic parameters, especially for high-temperature applications. Indeed, rare-earth-free magnets can operate under extreme conditions such as high temperatures and corrosive media, which are the milieu of the operation of motors in wind turbines subjected to strong variations in temperature and humidity. Various possible rare-earth-free magnets have been proposed and largely investigated, using compounds derived from the binary systems FePt, MnAl, MnBi, MnGa, etc. What is common for all these different systems is the fact that they all may exhibit, under certain conditions, the formation of the tetragonal L10 phase, which has been shown to present large magnetocrystalline anisotropy and high coercivity.

The aim of this Special Issue is to investigate the crystal structures responsible for the enhanced magnetic performances of rare-earth-free magnetic materials.

This Special Issue will address all the challenges involved in developing optimized crystal structures in novel rare-earth-free nanocomposite magnets, including, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Theory and modelling;
• Synthesis challenges and microstructure optimization;
• Magnetic phase coexistence and phase stability with temperature;
• Hard–soft exchange coupling in multiphase magnetic nanocomposites;
• Optimization of magnetic performances in rare-earth-free nanocomposite magnets;
• Magnetic performances in extreme conditions of operation.

Dr. Alina Crisan
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Crystals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• RE-free nanocomposite magnets
• hard–soft exchange coupling
• magnetic stability
• structural phase transformation
• L10 phase
• ferromagnetism
• antiferromagnetism
• soft magnetic materials
• hard magnets
• magnetocaloric materials
• functional magnetic materials
• magnetocaloric, magnetoelastic
• multiferroic materials