Characterization of Magnetoacoustic Emission Related to Structural Properties of Ferromagnets

An extensive study of magnetoacoustic emission (MAE) properties has been performed over the past several years[1, 2]. As a result, the dependence of the spectral characteristics of MAE on certain microstructural variations and uniaxially applied stress in a particular type of low carbon steel are now well known. The embrittlement-causing concentration of certain atomic species, e. g., tin, sulphur, phosphorous etc.[3], at the grain boundaries of this steel creates strong potential barriers resisting the motion of non-180 ° domain walls which is the source of MAE. (Since the only type of non-180 ° domain walls in this material are 90 ° domain walls, the term 90 ° domain wall will be used throughout this paper in place of non-180 ° domain wall.) An MAE burst produced during one-half cycle of a hysteresis loop at a low AC magnetic field frequency (e. g., 0.7 Hz) shows two sub-peaks; the leading peak is usually sharp and short-lived, while the trailing peak is usually smooth and long-lasting. It has been shown that the enhanced domain wall-defect interaction, due to the strengthened potential barriers, causes an increase in the asymmetry of the MAE signal by suppressing the leading sub-peak and amplifying the trailing sub-peak[4]. This phenomena is due to the delayed motion of the 90 ° domain walls. The effect of a tensile stress applied parallel to the external AC magnetic field is to diminish the MAE. On the other hand, the amplitude of the MAE burst has been shown to be a non-monotonic function of the stress amplitude[5]. Recently, our study has concentrated on obtaining quantitative values for parameters computed from the MAE spectra averaged over a sufficient number of cycles to achieve statistical stability. Nevertheless, certain fundamental elements of the MAE characteristics remain unexplained.