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Synthesis and characterization of a strong ferromagnetic and high hardness

intermetallic compound Fe 2 B

Article  in  Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics · October 2020

DOI: 10.1039/D0CP03380D

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Synthesis and characterization of a strong

ferromagnetic and high hardness intermetallic
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Cite this: DOI: 10.1039/d0cp03380d

compound Fe2B†
Xingbin Zhao,a Li Li,a Kuo Bao,*a Pinwen Zhu,a Qiang Tao,a Shuailing Ma,a Bo Liu,a
Yufei Ge,a Da Li a and Tian Cui *ab

Magnetic materials attract great attention due to their fundamental importance and practical application.
However, the relatively inferior mechanical properties of traditional magnetic materials limit their
application in a harsh environment. In this work, we report an outstanding magnetic material that
exhibits both fantastic mechanical and excellent magnetic properties, CuAl2-type Fe2B, synthesized by
1
the high pressure and high temperature method. The magnetic saturation of Fe2B is 156.9 emu g at
room temperature and its Vickers hardness is 12.4 GPa which outclasses those of traditional magnetic
7
materials. It exhibits good conductivity with a resistivity of 5.6  10 O m. Fe2B is a promising strong
Received 24th June 2020, ferromagnetic material with high hardness, which makes it a good candidate for multifunction applications
Accepted 12th October 2020 in a harsh environment. The high hardness of Fe2B originates from the Fe–B bond framework, and the
DOI: 10.1039/d0cp03380d strong ferromagnetism is mainly attributed to the large number of unpaired Fe 3d electrons. The competi-
tion of Fe 3d electrons to fall into Fe–B bonds or Fe–Fe bonds is the main factor for its magnetism and
rsc.li/pccp hardness. This work bridges the chasm between strong ferromagnetism and high hardness communities.

1 Introduction their hardness. It is of great significance to design novel

ferromagnetic materials with high intrinsic hardness. To that
With the development of science and technology, the signifi- end, introducing high strength bonds skeleton into a ferro-
cance of ferromagnetic materials has become increasingly magnetic system is an important method. Nevertheless, the
prominent in industry, aerospace, military and medicine.1–4 introduction of covalent bonds in a ferromagnetic system will
However, due to the low hardness of traditional ferromagnetic saturate the unpaired electrons to some extent, which might
materials, such as Fe (1.4 GPa), Fe3O4 (4.0 GPa), Nd–Fe–B destroy the magnetic properties.16 Therefore, how to balance
magnets (5.1 GPa), FeNi (4.0 GPa), etc.,5–8 their applications the contradiction between strong ferromagnetism and high
in a harsh environment are severely restricted.9–11 To overcome hardness is crucial for designing SFHH materials.
this limitation, materials with both high hardness and strong It has been recently reported that by introducing B into
ferromagnetic properties are highly desirable.12 Nevertheless, transition metal elements, their hardness can be greatly improved
the essential interrelation between mechanical properties and for introducing strong B–B bonds into the systems.17–19 Transition
ferromagnetism is still ambiguous. The design and synthesis of metal borides often exhibit excellent mechanical properties, such
intrinsic strong ferromagnetism and high hardness (SFHH) as WB4 (28.1 GPa), MoB (18.4 GPa), and OsB2 (16.8 GPa).17,20,21
materials are of great significance for understanding the inter- Since Fe has extremely high magnetic saturation and Curie
action mechanism between hardness and ferromagnetism. temperature,22 the Fe–B system may form SFHH materials due
Traditional ferromagnetic materials are usually alloys, ferrites to the combination of ferromagnetic transition metal Fe and light
and intermetallic compounds.13–15 These systems are domi- element B. The Fe–B system has been extensively studied in recent
nated by metallic bonds and ionic bonds, which severely limits years both theoretically and experimentally.23–26 It has been long
believed that with a higher concentration of the light element,
a
State Key Laboratory of Superhard Materials, College of Physics, Jilin University, higher strength and hardness could be expected.16,21 However,
Changchun, 130012, People’s Republic of China. E-mail: [email protected], Hui et al.’s systematic study on different phases of the Fe–B
[email protected]
b
system indicates that with the increasing B concentration,
Institute of High Pressure Physics, School of Physical Science and Technology,
Ningbo University, Ningbo, 315211, China
magnetism shows a downward trend.27 It is vital to select an
† Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/ appropriate B concentration to optimize the magnetic proper-
d0cp03380d ties and hardness. Fe2B seems to have both the magnetic and

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hardness advantages.27 However, experimental research on overestimation of Fe2B lattice constants caused by the GGA,30 we
Fe2B is rare, and the essential reasons for its high hardness used the crystallographic information obtained by GASA refine-
and high magnetism remain unclear. Therefore, research on ment. The electron–ion interaction was described by applying the
Fe2B would be helpful to understand the co-existence mecha- projector augmented-wave method (PAW)31 with 3d64s2 and
nism of high hardness and strong magnetism, and obtain clues 2s22p1 as the valence electrons for the Fe and B atoms, respec-
to design new SFHH materials in the future. tively. The total energy of the structure was minimized by relaxing
In this context, we fabricated a polycrystalline Fe2B com- the structural parameters using a conjugate gradient optimization
pound by the high pressure and high temperature (HPHT) method.32,33 We chose an energy cutoff of 500 eV and Monkhorst–
method. Our measurements of its magnetic and Vickers hard- Pack k-point meshes with a reciprocal space resolution of
ness properties shows that Fe2B is an SFHH material. To 2p  0.03 Å, which ensures that the total energies are well
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demonstrate the origin of its SFHH, density functional theory converged better than 1 meV per formula units (f.u.). Elastic
(DFT) calculations were done to investigate its bonding feature, constants were calculated using the strain–stress method. Bulk
mechanical properties and electronic states. On the basis of modulus B and shear modulus G were estimated using the Voigt–
its bonding feature, the high hardness of Fe2B was found to Reuss–Hill (VRH) approximation.34 Electron localization function
originate from the Fe–B bond skeleton and the strong ferro- (ELF), difference charge density, density of states (DOS), topo-
magnetism comes majorly from the large number of unpaired logical properties, Bader charge analysis35,36 and COHP37 were
Fe 3d electrons. Research on Fe2B is helpful to clarify the also performed in this work. VESTA38 was used for drawing the
interrelation between mechanical properties and ferromagnet- ELF and the difference charge density. Topological property
ism and it lays a foundation for designing SFHH materials analysis was derived from QTAIM.39,40
as well.

2 Experimental and 3 Results and discussion

computational details The HPHT method is a powerful technique for synthesizing
high-density materials and researching strongly correlated
The high purity Fe (99.99%) and B (99.95%) were mixed in a systems. Fe2B was synthesized at a pressure of 5.0 GPa and
mortar in a molar ratio of 1 : 0.7, ground for 2 hours and 1600 K with a holding time of 20 min. The XRD refinement
pressed into a wafer with 4 mm in diameter and 2.5 mm in results indicate that the sample synthesized is Fe2B without any
height. Then the wafer was reacted for 20 minutes at 5.0 GPa impurities. Fe2B has a CuAl2 structure with the I4/mcm space
and 1600 K. Afterwards the sample temperature was rapidly group and its crystal structure is shown in the inset of Fig. 1.
quenched to room temperature, with a cooling rate of about The B atoms in Fe2B are twisted and tightly arranged between
87 K s 1. The phase of the as-synthesized samples was char- the two layers of the Fe atoms. Fe2B is a typical intermetallic
acterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) using Cu Ka1 (l = 1.5404 Å) compound, in which the Fe and B atoms occupy the 8h and
radiation on a Rigaku D/max-2005 X-ray diffractometer. The 4a sites. The lattice parameters of Fe2B are a = b = 5.114(2) Å
patterns were refined by using GSAS software. The morphology
of the as-synthesized sample was studied by scanning electron
microscopy (SEM, JSM-6480LV). Vickers hardness (HV) mea-
surements were performed by using a micro-hardness tester
(HV, 1000ZDT) and the applied load ranged from 0.098 N to 9.8 N.
The applied load P and HV were determined using eqn (1):

HV = 1.8544P/d2 (1)

where d is the mean of the two diagonals of indentation and the

holding time under the peak load is 15 s. The electrical
resistivity was investigated with the Van der Pauw method.
Hysteresis loops at different temperatures were measured by
Quantum Design Physical Properties Measurement (PPMS) at a
temperature of 5 K, 100 K, 200 K, 300 K and 350 K with a
magnetic field sweep from 20 kOe to 20 kOe.
We also carried out ab initio structural relaxations and
electronic property calculations within the framework of spin-
polarized density functional theory (DFT) using the Vienna
Fig. 1 Rietveld refinement pattern of Fe2B. Solid dots: observed dots, red
Ab Initio Simulation Package (VASP) code.28 The Perdew–
line: calculated curve, blue vertical line: Bragg positions, yellow line: the
Burke–Ernzerhof (PBE) functional within the generalized different curve between the observed and the calculated curve. The inset
gradient approximation (GGA) was implemented for the figure shows the crystal structure of Fe2B. The red spheres represent the
exchange–correlation functional.29 In order to avoid systematical Fe atom and the green spheres represent the B atoms.

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Table 1 Experimental data and the crystal details obtained from the
rietveld refinement

Identification code Fe2B

Formula weight 122.49
Radiation Tetragonal
Wavelength (Å) 1.5404
Crystal system I4/mcm
a = b = 5.114(2)
Unit cell dimensions (Å) c = 4.253(7)
a = b = g = 901
Volume (Å3) 111.254
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Atomic Wyckoff (x, y, z) Occupancy

Fe 8i (0.167, 0.167, 0.25) 1
B 4c (0.5, 0, 0) 1

and c = 4.254(7) Å and the unit cell volume is V = 111.255(1) Å3,

which is similar to those in a previous experimental report.41
The crystal structure information on Fe2B is compiled in
Table 1.
To study the magnetic properties of Fe2B, we measured a
sequence of magnetic hysteresis curves at different tempera-
tures with a field sweep from 20 kOe to 20 kOe, as shown in
Fig. 2(a). The saturation magnetizations at 5 K, 100 K, 200 K,
300 K, and 350 K are about 161.6 emu g 1, 160.4 emu g 1,
157.9 emu g 1, 156.9 emu g 1, and 154.2 emu g 1, respectively.
The magnetic saturation value at room temperature (300 K)
is far above those of the frequently used magnetic Fe3O4
(63.5 emu g 1), AlFe2B2 (48.6 emu g 1), and CoFe2O4 (56.6 emu g 1)
materials.42–44 Ignoring the effect of boron on magnetism, the Fig. 2 (a) Hysteresis loops for Fe2B at 5 K, 100 K, 200 K, 300 K, and 350 K;
the inset shows the coercivity at 5 K, 100 K, 200 K, 300 K, and 350 K.
Fe atom in Fe2B carries a magnetic moment of 1.968 mB f.u. 1 at
(b) Saturation magnetization and coercivity curves as a function of
5 K, which is higher than those in previous reports and temperature.
approaches a saturated magnetic moment of Fe (2.2 mB f.u. 1).
The coercivity at 5 K, 100 K, 200 K, 300 K, and 350 K is about
98.3 Oe, 88.0 Oe, 89.0 Oe, 78.3 Oe and 89.0 Oe, respectively. the density measured by the Archimedes method is 7.0 g cm 3.
Furthermore, the saturation magnetization and coercivity The volume fraction porosity (VFP) is only 3.6%, which is in
curves as a function of temperature are shown in Fig. 2(b). With accordance with the compact microstructure morphology shown
the increase of temperature, the magnetic saturation decreases.
However, the coercivity has no specific temperature dependence.
Fe2B is a typical permanent ferromagnetic material. The large value
of saturation magnetization indicates that Fe2B has important
applications in the field of magnetic refrigeration, magnetic fluid,
permanent magnetic material, magnetic resonance imaging,
magnetic core material, etc.
To investigate the morphology of the Fe2B sample, the
fracture surface was observed by SEM, as shown in Fig. 3(a)
and (b). The Fe2B sample has a compact structure, with a few
pores or cracks. The grain size reaches 20 mm, which is
approximate to the size of hardness indentation. There are
some dark grains, which are due to excess B. Since a material’s
hardness can be influenced by extrinsic factors such as grain
boundaries and dislocations, sufficiently large crystalline
grains will weaken the effect of extrinsic factors on hardness.
Meanwhile, the compact structure also weakens the effects of
defects. Then the porosity of our sample was researched using Fig. 3 (a) and (b) show the low and high magnification field-emission SEM
the Archimedes drainage method. Considering the effect of excess images of Fe2B, and (c) and (d) show the B and Fe element EDS of the
boron, the theoretical density of Fe2B should be 7.2 g cm 3, while smooth area after polishing, respectively.

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in the SEM images. Therefore, the synthesized specimen is Table 2 Hardness and magnetic properties of some traditional magnetic
suitable for the hardness test, and the measurement shows the materials.5–7,11,38,46–60
intrinsic hardness of Fe2B. It is worth mentioning that because Compounds Ms (emu g 1) Tc (K) Hc (Oe) Hardness (GPa)
excess B affects the intrinsic hardness of Fe2B, the hardness
Fe2B 156.69 1017 78.29 12.4
measurement that we performed avoided the B aggregation Fe 220 1043 — 1.4
area. Then the sample was cut and polished and the smooth Nd2Fe14B B100 585 1.3  104 B5
area was measurement by EDS, as shown in Fig. 3(c) and (d). FeSiAl 78.0 — — 1.5
Fe2P 73 214 — —
The distribution of the Fe and B elements was uniform and Fe3O4 63.5 858 140 4.0
there was no B aggregation area in the smooth area, which CoFe2O4 56.6 465 1.4  104 6.3
excludes the effect of excess B on hardness. MnBi 55.1 628 1.4  104 1.1
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FeNi 52.2 590 63.3 4.0

Hardness is one of the most important considerations, when AlFe2B2 48.6 274 — 10.2  0.2
a magnetic material is used under extreme conditions. In order NiMnIn 39.5 325 130 7.2
to study the hardness of Fe2B, micro-indentation experiments Fe3 xVxGe 92.1–216.1 450–640 — 4.0–9.7
were performed on the polished specimen surface in an applied
load range of 0.098–9.8 N. The load dependent Vickers micro-
In order to have an insight into the origin of the excellent
hardness data of Fe2B are shown in Fig. 4. The test value
mechanical, electrical and magnetic properties of Fe2B, the
decreases with the increase of the applied load. The maximum
electronic structures and mechanical properties were calcu-
value at an applied load of 0.098 N is 33.0 GPa, and the
lated. First, to assess the bonding character, the electron
asymptotic value is 12.4 GPa at an applied load of 9.8 N.
location function (ELF) was calculated as shown in Fig. 5(a)
The asymptotic hardness value is slightly lower than those in
and (b). The electron density in the interstitial regions is greater
the previous reports,45 because of the fact that we exclude
than 0.1 e Å 3, which indicates the metallic nature of Fe2B.
the extrinsic influencing factors on the hardness of Fe2B. The
There is no obvious electron localization between Fe and B,
hardness of Fe2B is much higher than that of most of the
indicating that the Fe–B bond has ionic characteristics. To
traditional ferromagnetic materials and even comparable to
further confirm the bond characteristics of Fe2B, the Laplacian
that of the traditional cemented carbides (7.3–18.0 GPa). Some
of the charge density at the critical point was calculated, as
traditional ferromagnetic materials’ hardness and magnetic
shown in Fig. S1 (ESI†). The BCP between Fe and the nearest B
properties are shown in Table 2. Moreover, the Curie tempera-
possesses an electron density r of 0.3986 a.u. and a Laplacian of
ture of Fe2B reaches 1017 K, showing strong temperature
1.4626 a.u. The positive Laplacian and the large value of
stability.41 Fe2B is a promising candidate ferromagnetic
electron density are indicative of the ionic bond nature of the
material with high hardness. Meanwhile, Fe-based materials
Fe–B bonds. The BCP between Fe and the nearest Fe possesses
often show excellent electrical properties. The Fe2B resistivity is
an electron density r of 0.2467 a.u. and a Laplacian of
5.6  10 7 O m as measured by the van der Pauw method, and
0.7136 a.u. The small value of electron density and the positive
it has the same magnitude as that of many alloys such as
Laplacian indicate the metal bond characteristics of Fe–Fe.
constantan (5.0  10 7 O m) and manganese copper (4.4 
10 7 O m). The excellent electrical conductivity will expand the
application field of Fe2B.

Fig. 4 Vickers hardness of Fe2B. The applied load ranged from 0.245 N Fig. 5 Electronic states of Fe2B. (a) and (b) are the charge density
(low load) to 9.8 N (high load). The corresponding Vickers hardness ranged (e bohr 3) plots and the ELF of (100) and (010). (c) is the crystal structure of
from 33 GPa to 12.4 GPa at low load and high load, respectively. Fe2B. (d) is the difference charge density (e bohr 3) of the Fe2B(100) plane.

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Then we performed Bader charge analysis, and there are which suggests that the bonding between Fe and B is loose,
only 0.26 electrons transferred from Fe to B. Most of the signifying its soft covalent feature. Considering the electron
unpaired electrons of Fe remain in the 3d orbitals, which leads transfer induced ionic character, the Fe–B bonds are ionic-
to a strong magnetism of Fe2B. For further understanding the covalent mixed. Two main peaks are observed in the total
bonding properties, we calculated the difference charge density density of states of Fe2B below the Fermi level, regardless of
of Fe2B. Fig. 5(c) shows the crystal structure of Fe2B and the up or down spins. The first peak (P1) ranged from 8.67 eV to
Miller index of the brown plane is (0 1 0). The difference charge 0.94 eV and 7.45 eV to 0 eV for the up and down spins,
density of the (1 0 0) plane is shown in Fig. 5(d). As an electron- respectively. It is caused by the bonding between B and Fe
losing element, Fe transfers part of its electrons to the position atoms. Owing to the exchange–correlation potential, the DOS of
between Fe and B, and near the B core, which reveals the ionic the down spins is broadened. One can find that the Fe–B bonds
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nature of the Fe–B bond. The remaining transferred electrons are almost ineffective on ferromagnetism of Fe2B. The other
disperse between Fe and Fe and show metal bond character- peak (P2) is bimodal and shows a large difference for the up
istics, which is generally considered to minimize the hardness and down spins. A substantial part of down spins bimodal is
of materials. It is quite different from conventional thinking over the Fermi level. The ferromagnetism is mainly contributed
that there is electron localization between B and B, which by the difference between the up and down spins of P2, which
proves no strong bonding between B and B. Thus, it can be can be attributed to the contribution of Fe–Fe metal bonds. The
seen that the Fe–B bonds form the main framework for the high Fe 3d electron competition between Fe–B bonds and Fe–Fe
hardness of Fe2B. bonds may be the main factor affecting the magnetic properties
For better understanding of the electronic state and mag- and hardness of Fe2B. Moreover, this viewpoint can be extended
netic properties of Fe2B, spin polarized total density of states to different stoichiometric ferromagnetic metal-light element
(TDOS) and partial density of states (PDOS) were calculated, as (FMLE) systems. The change of light element concentrations
shown in Fig. 6. It can be seen that the TDOS is mostly can effectively affect the strength of the FM–LE bonds and the
contributed by the Fe 3d states. The non-zero states at the number of transferred electrons in the FM atoms, so as to adjust
Fermi level (EF) for the TDOS indicates the metallicity of Fe2B, the hardness and ferromagnetism of the system.
which is consistent with the experiment result. The numbers of In order to gain insight into the specific contributions of the
spin electrons above and below are not equal, which indicates 3d electrons in different orbitals, we separate and research the
the existence of a spin magnetic moment in Fe2B. Ignoring the eg (dz2, dx2–y2) and t2g (dxy, dxz, dyz) orbitals in detail, as shown in
contribution of boron to ferromagnetism, the magnetic Fig. S2(a) and (b) (ESI†). The magnetization of the t2g states has
moment of Fe2B is about 1.874 mB per Fe, which is similar to a larger value than that of the eg states. The magnetic difference
the experimental magnetic moment of 1.968 mB per Fe. From between the eg and t2g states is due to the strength of renorma-
the PDOS, there is a certain amount of hybridization between lization for each band.61 According to the density of states
the 3d energy level of Fe and the 2p energy level of B, which (DOS) analysis of atomic orbitals, it is found that the electrons
demonstrates that there are also some covalent components in at the Fermi surface are mainly provided by eg. The eg band of
the Fe–B bonds. However, the hybridization region is narrow, the Fe 3d orbitals dominates the metallicity of the system. Then
we calculated the –PCOHP and –ICOHP of Fe2B, which are
shown in Fig. 7(a), (b) and collected in Table 3. All of the data
support a rather regular assessment of bonding in this com-
pound. We found that the bonding states of the Fe–B bond

Fig. 7 COHPs for (a) Fe–Fe bonds and (b) Fe–B bonds; the negative and
positive COHP values denote bonding and antibonding interactions,
Fig. 6 Calculated total and partial DOS with spin-polarization for Fe2B. respectively.

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Table 3 –ICOHP of the bonds for up and down spins higher than that of most of the traditional ferromagnetic
materials and even comparable to that of the traditional cemented
Up spins Down spins
carbides. The magnetic saturation of Fe2B is 156.9 emu g 1 and
Fe–B 0.8525 0.8687 the resistivity is 5.6  10 7 O m. Fe2B is a promising candidate
Fe–Fe 0.2158 0.1190
SFHH material. Theoretical analysis found that the high hardness
originates from the strong hybridization between Fe 3d orbitals
appear in a range of 9.40 eV to 0.94 eV and 9.40 eV to 0 eV and B 2p orbitals, which generates an Fe–B bond framework. And
for the up and down spins, respectively, corresponding to the the low-boron content has less effect on the Fe 3d orbital states,
P1 peak range in the DOS. The bonding state of the Fe–Fe bond whose ferromagnetism is still strong. The competition of the Fe
only appears in a narrow range of 1.07 eV to 0 eV for the down 3d electrons to fall into Fe–B bonds or Fe–Fe bonds is the main
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spins, and the up spin bonding state corresponds to the P2 factor that affects its ferromagnetism and hardness. Hence, the
peak from 3.06 eV to 0 eV. It can be concluded that the P1 and ferromagnetic properties and hardness showed an opposite
P2 peaks correspond to the contribution of Fe–B and Fe–Fe trend with the change of the B concentration in the Fe–B
bonds, respectively. The ICOHP of the Fe–Fe bond is 0.2158 per systems. Overall, we speculate that the light element concen-
pair and 0.1190 per pair for the up and down spins, respec- tration can effectively adjust the hardness and magnetic beha-
tively. The ICOHP of the Fe–B bond is 0.8525 per pair and viour of the FMLE system. We suggest two principles to design
0.8687 per pair, corresponding to the up and down spins, SFHH materials: (i) introducing high strength ferromagnetic
respectively. This reveals that the interaction between Fe–B is element-light element bond skeletons and (ii) selecting an
stronger than that between the Fe–Fe bond. appropriate concentration of light elements to maintain the
Furthermore, the mechanical properties of Fe2B were also relatively primitive state of magnetic elements. Ferromagnetic
calculated. The elastic modulus B and shear modulus G of Fe2B element-light element intermetallic compounds are potential
are 237.8 Gpa and 146.9 GPa, respectively. And the Possion’s SFHH materials. Research on Fe2B bridges the chasm between
ratio is 0.2439. The mechanical properties are superior to those strong ferromagnetic and high hardness communities and
of pure Fe whose corresponding parameters are 81.2–83.1 GPa provides an effective way to design SFHH materials.
and 161.8 GPa, respectively.62 The introduction of B improves
the shear slip resistance and the compression resistance, which
promotes the hardness. Based on Pugh theory,63 the ratio G/B is Conflicts of interest
0.62, showing that Fe2B is brittle. The calculated hardness of
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Fe2B is 12.6 GPa based on Tian et al.’s hardness model64 and it
is close to our experimental results.
Above all, the Fe–B bonds are the main framework in Fe2B
and extended B networks do not exist. The hybridization
Acknowledgements
between the Fe 3d orbitals and the B 2p orbitals enhances This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of
the strength of the Fe–B bonds. It is obvious that the hardness China (2018YFA0703404 and 2017YFA0403704), the National
of transition metals can be significantly improved by the Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 11774121 and
bonding between transition metal elements and light elements. 91745203), the National Key Research and Development
Meanwhile, due to the low boron concentration, the number of Program of China (2016YFB0201204), and the Program for
electrons that Fe needs to transfer are relatively low. The Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University
magnetic states of Fe are hardly changed after bonding, and it (No. IRT_15R23). Parts of calculations were performed at the High
will maintain a relatively high magnetism compared with pure Fe. Performance Computing Center (HPCC) of Jilin University.
Plainly, the B concentration can influence the hardness and
ferromagnetism of the Fe–B system.65–67 This provides a mentality
to design high hardness magnetic materials improving the bond- References
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