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Giant magnetic-field-induced strains in polycrystalline Ni–Mn–Ga foams

Nature Materials volume 8, pages 863–866 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

The magnetic shape-memory alloy Ni–Mn–Ga shows, in monocrystalline form, a reversible magnetic-field-induced strain (MFIS) up to 10%. This strain, which is produced by twin boundaries moving solely by internal stresses generated by magnetic anisotropy energy1,2,3,4, can be used in actuators, sensors and energy-harvesting devices5,6,7. Compared with monocrystalline Ni–Mn–Ga, fine-grained Ni–Mn–Ga is much easier to process but shows near-zero MFIS because twin boundary motion is inhibited by constraints imposed by grain boundaries8,9,10. Recently, we showed that partial removal of these constraints, by introducing pores with sizes similar to grains, resulted in MFIS values of 0.12% in polycrystalline Ni–Mn–Ga foams11, close to those of the best commercial magnetostrictive materials. Here, we demonstrate that introducing pores smaller than the grain size further reduces constraints and markedly increases MFIS to 2.0–8.7%. These strains, which remain stable over >200,000 cycles, are much larger than those of any polycrystalline, active material.

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Figure 1: Polished cross-section of Ni–Mn–Ga foam with a dual pore size.
Figure 2: Plot of MFIS versus magneto-mechanical cycles for the first series of tests at room temperature (∼16 ∘C).
Figure 3: MFIS measurement during the second series of tests, when the foam was thermally cycled ten times between its martensite and austenite phases.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank A. Rothenbühler (Boise State University) for assistance with magnetic and magneto-mechanical experiments. This project was financially supported by the National Science Foundation through grant NSF-DMR 0804984 (Boise State University) and DMR-805064 (Northwestern University). M.C. acknowledges partial financial support through the German Research Foundation (DFG) priority program SPP 1239 (grant No. Schn 1106/1). P.M. is grateful to ETH Zürich for donating magneto-mechanical testing devices.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho 83725, USA

    M. Chmielus, C. Witherspoon & P. Müllner

  2. Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA

    X. X. Zhang & D. C. Dunand

  3. Also at: GI-1, Helmholtz Centre Berlin for Materials and Energy, Glienicker Str. 100, 14109 Berlin, Germany (M.C.); Harbin Institute of Technology, West Dazhi Street No. 92, 150001, Harbin, P. R. China (X.X.Z.),

    M. Chmielus & X. X. Zhang

  4. Harbin Institute of Technology, West Dazhi Street No. 92, 150001, Harbin, P. R. China (X.X.Z.),

    M. Chmielus & X. X. Zhang

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  1. M. Chmielus
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Contributions

X.X.Z. produced the foam and characterized its architecture, twin microstructure and porosity. M.C. and C.W. carried out the magnetic and magneto-mechanical experiments. M.C. analysed the data and wrote the first version of the manuscript, with contributions from X.X.Z. P.M. and D.C.D. conceived the dual-porosity strategy, supervised the experiments at their respective universities and completed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to P. Müllner.

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Chmielus, M., Zhang, X., Witherspoon, C. et al. Giant magnetic-field-induced strains in polycrystalline Ni–Mn–Ga foams. Nature Mater 8, 863–866 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2527

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