Researchers at NUST MISIS have developed an alloy based on manganese, aluminum, and vanadium that allows the production of permanent magnets without the use of expensive rare earth metals. After quenching and annealing, the proportion of the magnetic tau phase in the sample exceeded 90%, the university's press service reported.
The addition of vanadium provided precise control over the crystal structure. Although the tau phase becomes less stable and breaks down at a lower temperature, ultrafast quenching of the melt on a rotating copper disk allows it to be obtained without additional heat treatment. The researchers also recorded an anomalous hysteresis of the Curie temperature: the difference between heating and cooling exceeded 100°C without changing the crystal lattice — an effect not previously observed in such alloys.
The development hits a pain point in the Russian permanent magnet market, which amounts to 739 tons (2024 data). The country has 17% of the world's rare earth reserves, but extracts less than 1%, and the bulk of NdFeB magnets are imported from China. The new alloy fills the niche of economical magnets for UAV electric motors, sensors, and robotic drives, reducing critical dependence on external supplies.