Mossbauer spectroscopic study of heat-treated and control-cooled Fe3Al alloys

Abstract

The Fe–Al system forms a model object of transition metal-sp element system. Fe–Al alloys containing 21–31 at% Al are known to exhibit several attractive physical properties which render them candidate materials for structural and magnetic applications. These magnetic and physical properties can be varied by altering the composition and the processing routes. Keeping this in mind, Mossbauer spectra of five Fe–24 at% Al and Fe–25 at% Al alloy samples processed via different routes have been studied. The analysis of the Mossbauer parameters, distribution of hyperfine magnetic fields, P(H) and H-values were used to identify various Fe-atom configurations (nearest neighbour or next nearest neighbour) associated with the phases formed by different processing routes. The results obtained from the present study indicate that the average hyperfine field 〈H〉 depends on the average rate of cooling followed during the precipitation of these phases.