Patent ID: 7138017

Claim:
A method of making an alloy powder for an R—Fe—B-type rare earth magnet, the method comprising the steps of: a) preparing a material alloy that is to be used to form the R—Fe—B-type rare earth magnet and that includes a chilled structure that constitutes about 2 volume percent to about 20 volume percent of the material alloy; b) coarsely pulverizing the material alloy for the R—Fe—B-type rare earth magnet by utilizing a hydrogen occlusion phenomenon to obtain a coarsely pulverized powder; c) finely pulverizing the coarsely pulverized powder and removing at least some of fine powder particles having particle sizes of about 1.0 pm or less from the finely pulverized powder, thereby reducing the volume fraction of the fine powder particles having the particle sizes of about 1.0 pm or less; and d) covering the surface of remaining ones of the powder particles with a lubricant after the step c) has been performed.