The nanocrystalline soft magnetic materials are a good choice for magnetic component design in electronics and power electronics when their price is competitive.
In comparison with amorphous alloys, nanocrystalline alloys are a better choice for power transformers and common mode chokes because of the higher initial permeability and lower iron loss under medium-high frequency. Nanocrystalline cores reveal good high-frequency damping properties because of their low losses, high saturation induction, and high initial permeability.
Typical applications of the nanocrystalline soft magnetic materials are as below.
Power transformers in SMPS
SMPS stands for switched-mode power supply, which is an important apparatus in the industry. Ferrite cores are usually required for AC/DC current transverse, but more and more nanocrystalline cores are adopted because of the good magnetic properties.
Distribution transformers
Distribution transformers are used for stepping down the voltage from distribution lines to the level used by customers. Nanocrystalline cores can make the magnetic loss much lower than silicon steel cores.
Common-mode chokes
The common-mode (CM) choke, where two coils are wound on a single-core, is useful for suppression of electromagnetic interference (EMI) and radio frequency interference (RFI) from power supply lines and for prevention of malfunctioning of power electronics device. The designer usually chooses ferrite core or nanocrystalline core, while the former is cheap, and the latter has good performance in noise suppression.
High accuracy current transformers
High accuracy or high precision current transformers are usually used for electricity measuring. Nanocrystalline cores for measurement require small volume, high initial permeability, and low Hc value. One special type of high precision current transformer is DC immune current transformer, which require the DC immune dual-core inside, which is the combination of nanocrystalline and amorphous.