[摘要]:Unusual magnetic anisotropy of the ferromagnetic shape-memory alloy Ni50Fe23Ga27 has been observed. The anisotropy of the austenite becomes very large, even larger than that of the martensite in ribbon samples. Lowering the temperature from 300K to 80K, the saturation field of the austenite is dramatically increased from 200 Oe up to 6 kOe. This high-anisotropy behavior clearly highlights the demagnetization effect of the martensitic transformation. The physical mechanism is attributed to a collective effect coming from the atomic disorder, the premartensitic transformation, and the off-stoichiometric Ga-rich composition of the alloys. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3671666]