Crystallization by ball milling: a way to produce soft magnetic materials in powdered form

We have produced by high energy ball milling a nanocrystalline material in powdered form. The starting material was amorphous melt spun Fe/sub 64.5/Co/sub 18/Si/sub 1/B/sub 16/C/sub 0.5/. From the results of a systematic study of the dependence of the saturation coercive force on the annealing time and temperature it was evidenced the possibility of achieving coercivities as low as 0.150/spl plusmn/0.004 Oe and therefore comparable with those measured in the as-quenched highly magnetostrictive melt spun samples of similar composition.