Li HX, Gao JE, Wu Y, Jiao ZB, Ma D, Stoica AD, Wang XL, Ren Y, Miller MK, Lu ZP. Enhancing glass-forming ability via frustration of nano-clustering in alloys with a high solvent content.
Sci Rep 2014;
3:1983. [PMID:
23760427 PMCID:
PMC3680804 DOI:
10.1038/srep01983]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/19/2013] [Accepted: 05/24/2013] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
The glass-forming ability (GFA) of alloys with a high-solvent content such as soft magnetic Fe-based and Al-based alloys is usually limited due to strong formation of the solvent-based solid solution phase. Herein, we report that the GFA of soft magnetic Fe-based alloys (with >70 at.% Fe to ensure large saturation magnetization) could be dramatically improved by doping with only 0.3 at.% Cu which has a positive enthalpy of mixing with Fe. It was found that an appropriate Cu addition could enhance the liquid phase stability and crystallization resistance by destabilizing the α-Fe nano-clusters due to the necessity to redistribute the Cu atoms. However, excessive Cu doping would stimulate nucleation of the α-Fe nano-clusters due to the repulsive nature between the Fe and Cu atoms, thus deteriorating the GFA. Our findings provide new insights into understanding of glass formation in general.
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