METHOD FOR PRODUCING RARE EARTH BASED ALLOY POWDER AND METHOD FOR PRODUCING RARE EARTH BASED SINTERE

A method for producing a rare earth based alloy powder for use in producing a rare earth sintered magnet having a primary phase of a composition represented by R2T14A [wherein R represents a rare earth element including Y, T represents Fe or a mixture of Fe with at least one transition metal except Fe, and A represents boron or a mixture of boron and carbon], which comprises providing a first rapidly solidified rare earth alloy having a columnar structure having an average dendrite width in a specific range through a process comprising the rapid solidification from a molten alloy, providing a secondary rapidly solidified rare earth alloy having an average dendrite width smaller than that of the first rapidly solidified rare earth alloy, and pulverizing the respective rare earth alloys and mixing the resultant powders, to produce the objective mixed powder. The pulverization of alloys having different dendrite widths provides powders having different particle sizes dependent on respective dendrite widths and the mixing thereof produces a powder having a broad particle size distribution, which results in the production of a powder exhibiting improved packing characteristics.