The project will reduce the use of neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), and dysprosium (Dy) in permanent magnets using a nanostructure engineering approach. Specific objectives include developing high temperature magnets with minimum use of Dy and replacing Nd with lanthanum (La) and cerium (Ce) in neodymium iron boron (NdFeB) magnets for less demanding applications. Both novel chemistry and novel fabrication method will be explored to develop novel processes and their corresponding chemistries to enable scalable manufacturing of nanograined magnets, design the grain boundary phase for enhancing the coercivity of critical-element-lean magnets and develop the process to put these grain boundary phases at the desired location.
