Investigation of structural and magnetic properties of ball milled and post annealed Ni₅₀Mn₃₆Fe₂Sb₁₂Heusler alloy

Heulser alloys are promising materials due to its tunable magnetic and related properties that may provide outstanding functionality. In present work, we demonstrate the preparation and investigation of Ni50Mn36Fe2Sb12 ball milled Heusler alloy. Furthermore, we report the effect of ball milling and its annealing effect on the structural, magnetic and exchange bias properties of Ni50Mn36Fe2Sb12 Heusler alloys. The ball milled samples exhibit coexisting austenite and martensite phases at room temperature, while annealing suppresses the austenite phase completely. Ball milling was found to reduce the particle size, which resulted in the weakening of the ferromagnetic properties. An exchange bias field of 111 Oe and coercivity of 826 Oe were observed at 5 K in the as-milled sample. Annealing causes an increase in the ferromagnetic ordering and a decrease in the interfacial exchange coupling, resulting in a decrease of both exchange bias and coercivity in the annealed samples. The combination of cost efficient synthesis technique and tunable magnetic properties opens a new path to the possible of mass production of Heusler alloys for various applications.