Coercivity and Domain Structure of Silicon-Iron Single Crystals

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Abstract
For an understanding of the characteristic values of the hysteresis of a ferromagnetic material one must find a connection between the magnetic domain structure and the magnetization curve of a specimen. This problem was approached experimentally, using oriented silicon steel with approximate (110) surfaces, the domain structure of which had been investigated in previous work. The coercivity of monocrystalline disks with different misorientations and heat treatments (thus having different internal stresses and defect densities) was measured. The phase‐volumes of the domains oriented at right angles to the preferred direction of the material were determined by magnetostriction measurements on the same crystals. A linear relation was found between the coercivity and the phase‐volume of cross domains, but there was no correlation with other parameters. It was concluded that crystal defects, internal stresses, and stray fields (as produced by misorientation) do not influence the coercivity directly but through the cross domains they may cause. Estimates of possible mechanism lead to reasonable results.