Texturing by cooling a metallic melt in a magnetic field.

Processing in a magnetic field leads to the texturing of materials along an easy-magnetization axis when a minimum anisotropy energy exists at the processing temperature; the magnetic field can be applied to a particle assembly embedded into a liquid, or to a solid at a high diffusion temperature close to the melting temperature or between the liquidus and the solidus temperatures in a region of partial melting. It has been shown in many experiments that texturing is easy to achieve in congruent and noncongruent compounds by applying the field above the melting temperature Tm or above the liquidus temperature of alloys. Texturing from a melt is successful when the overheating temperature is just a few degrees above Tm and fails when the processing time above Tm is too long or when the overheating temperature is too high; these observations indicate the presence of unmelted crystals above Tm with a size depending on these two variables that act as growth nuclei. A recent model that predicts the existence of unmelted crystals above the melting temperature is used to calculate their radius in a bismuth melt.