Direct evidence of magnetically induced phase separation in the fcc phase and thermodynamic calculations of phase equilibria of the Co–Cr system Original Research Article

Two-phase equilibria between the ferromagnetic fcc and the paramagnetic fcc phase from 800 to 900 °C in the Co-rich region was determined using the diffusion couple technique. It was confirmed that a magnetically-induced miscibility gap of the fcc phase is formed along the Curie temperature. Thermodynamic calculation of the phase equilibria of the Co–Cr system was performed by optimizing the present results and the thermodynamic data in the literature. A set of thermodynamic values for describing the Gibbs energy of liquid, fcc hcp, bcc and sigma phases yielded good agreement between the calculated phase diagram and the experimental data. Moreover, the magnetically-induced miscibility gap between the ferromagnetic and paramagnetic hcp phases was also predicted. This kind of thermodynamic calculation of Co–Cr base alloys is quite useful for the alloy design of the magnetic recording media.