Microstructure evolution process of Ferro-Aluminum based sandwich composite for electromagnetic shielding.

In this paper, sandwich composite (SWC) with Fe-Al soft magnetic alloy sandwiched between pure iron substrates was proposed and fabricated by hot pressing and diffusion treatment. The microstructure evolution process of the composite was investigated. Fe/Fe2Al5/Fe diffusion couple was obtained at 700 °C and subsequently kept at 900 °C for further isothermal diffusion. During the diffusion reactive process, we confirmed that major FeAl2 and minor Fe4Al13 were produced when Fe2Al5 dissolved. After 10h of diffusion treatment, FeAl and α-Fe(Al) were the only two intermetallic phases left. Except FeAl2, the thickness of each intermetallic layer held good parabolic relationship with the diffusion annealing time.