A new method to make high-performance magnets could minimize our reliance on rare earth elementsA team of researchers from the University of Cambridge, alongside colleagues in Austria, has discovered a potential replacement for the current method for making high-performance magnets without using rare earth elements."When I looked closer, I saw an interesting diffraction pattern indicating an ordered atomic structure,” said first author Dr. Yurii Ivanov, who completed the work while at Cambridge and is now based at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa.By mixing iron, nickel, and phosphorus in the right quantities, the team was able to speed up tetrataenite formation by between 11 and 15 orders of magnitude.Here it is shown that with appropriate alloy compositions, bulk synthesis of tetrataenite is possible, even in conventional casting at cooling rates 11‒15 orders of magnitude higher than in meteorites.The barrier to obtaining tetrataenite (slow ordering from cubic close-packed to body-centered tetragonal) is circumvented, opening a processing window for potential rare-earth-free permanent magnets."