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X-ray diffraction patterns of melt-spun Fe-Cu-Nb-Si-B (FINEMET-type) alloys reveal that crystallites of Fe₂Si and Fe₃B phases with average sizes of 15(5) and 20(2) nm are present in the surface layer of thickness ≈ 10 Å and these nanocrystallites occupy 5–10% of the total volume. The results of an elaborate analysis of the high-resolution electrical resistivity data taken in a temperature range from 13 K to 300 K and their discussion in the light of existing theories demonstrates that the enhanced electron–electron interaction (EEI), quantum interference (QI) effects, inelastic electron–phonon scattering, coherent electron–magnon (and/or electron-spin fluctuation) scattering are the main mechanisms that govern the temperature dependence of resistivity. Of all the inelastic scattering processes, inelastic electron–phonon scattering is the most effective mechanism to destroy phase coherence of electron wavefunctions. The physical quantities such as diffusion constant, density of states at the Fermi level and the phase-breaking time, determined for the first time for the alloys in question, exhibit a systematic variation with the copper concentration.

We studied the theoretical Curie temperature of a dual-phase nanomagnetic system by Monte Carlo simulation of a modified Heisenberg model on a 3D complex lattice consisting of single- and cluster-spins. We also systematically investigated the experimental Curie temperature of a dual-phase nanomagnetic alloy and performed a direct comparison between theory and experiment. The exchange coupling between two component magnetic phases substantially affects the Curie temperature of the intergranular amorphous region of a dual-phase nanomagnetic system. The depends upon the nanocrystallite size d, the volume fraction V_c and the interspace among crystallites ξ. Large crystallized volume fraction V_c, small grain size d, and thin interphase thickness ξ lead to an obvious enhancement of Curie temperature (ECT) of intergranular amorphous region, whereas the Curie temperature of nanocrystallites decreases slightly. By simulation, we worked out a relationship between the reduced ECT and ξ, as , and it conforms to the experimental result. In addition, we also simulated the demagnetization of a hard–soft nanocomposite system. The exchange coupling between two component phases affects the cooperativity of two-phase magnetizations, the coherent reversal of magnetizations, and coercivity.

Fe-based amorphous alloys are widely used in the magnetic apparatus and generally produced by the single-roller copper-wheel melt spinning method. Spray forming is one of the rapid solidification techniques as the spinning method is, seldom used to fabricate Fe-based amorphous alloys. However in this paper, a Fe-based alloy with the nominal composition of Fe_73.5Cu₁Nb₃Si_13.5B₉ (at.%) alloy was fabricated by spray forming technique with the aim of investigating the formation of amorphous phases and novel microstructures by the high cooling rate involved in this process. The gas/metal mass flow rate used was 0.15, and nitrogen was used as the atomization gas. The resulting deposit and the overspray powder had a median diameter of about 50 μm with a total weight of about 2.2 kg. The microstructure of the deposit was observed by utilizing the X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Optical Microscope (OM), as well as Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), which revealed a heterogeneous varying with the thickness, presenting at center region 15 mm and at border 8 mm with porosities 4 and 9%, respectively. The thicker region showed a fully crystalline microstructure with grain size of about 250nm, whereas the thinner region had a partially amorphous phase with an average grain size of 40nm. The overspray powder was fully crystallized with the grain size of 80nm which was calculated from XRD spectra using the Scherrer formula. The magnetic properties were measured through VSM, giving a poor magnetic saturation value of about 0.3~0.6T. The coercive force was increased significantly.

Cold gas dynamic spraying (CGDS) technique makes use of high-speed gas current to spray diversified metal, alloy and composite materials under room temperature or with a little heated. It is one kind of novel surface engineering technologies, aimed at eliminating such negative influences as oxidation, gasification, melt, crystallization and gas decomposition and so on existing in hot spraying technologies. Due to its peculiar characteristics such as low spraying temperature, non-oxidation, low stress among coating layers, compactification, and high utilization rate of raw materials, as well as effective applications in the domain of fabricating coatings, the CGDS technique has attracted great attention. As it has the advantages aforementioned, especially avoiding the changes of material properties resulted from high spraying temperature, CGDS provides a kind of revolutionary means for fabricating such heat-sensitive materials as amorphous alloys. The paper reviews the current situation and application development of the CGDS technique, and presents our preliminary exploration of fabricating bulk Fe-based amorphous alloy via CGDS together with mechanical milling process.

Formation of icosahedral clusters in Ni_66.7Zr_33.3 alloy during rapid solidification is studied with molecular dynamics simulations. It is found that the growth rate of the smallest icosahedral cluster (Ih13) in Ni_66.7Zr_33.3 alloy reaches its maximum at glass transition temperature region. The Ih13 in Ni_66.7Zr_33.3 alloy contain the retained from the higher temperatures and the new grown, which reach its maximum at about 900K as well as the new grown vertex atoms of Ih13. The ratio of new grown center atoms to the new grown vertex atoms increases with decreasing temperatures, which implies that the new Ih13 form beside original Ih13 and the icosahedral clusters coalesce to the larger ones during solidification. The stabilities of center atoms and vertex atoms of Ih13 increase with decreasing temperatures, and the stability of the center atoms becomes larger than that of vertex atoms blow 900K because of its rapid increase at glass transition temperatures. The results show that the evolutions of atomic arrangement during cooling change abruptly at glass transition region.

Amorphous materials of the Si-(B)-C-N system have recently attracted considerable interest because of its hardness, low density, durability at extremely high temperature and easy to be prepared from precursor compounds by polymer route. The materials show a great potential to be used in the field of the Thermal Protective System (TPS) for the aircrafts, while the microstructure and chemical configuration are still not clearly revealed due to its complicated covalent character for this multi-component amorphous material. This paper focused on the characterization of polymer derived Si-(B)-C-N amorphous ceramic, various method were employed in order to obtain accurate information about the microstructure, chemical composition, bonding mode of components, such as TEM, EPMA, NMR and FT-IR. SiC crystalline was found existing in the amorphous glass, which indicates the preparation process was achieved accompanied by crystallization of SiC from polymer precursor. The microstructure of the researched material was analyzed and relative accurate chemical composition was obtained on the basis of characterization result, furthermore the covalent character of the amorphous material was deduced according to the characterization results obtained.

Annealing study of amorphous bulk and nanoparticle iron at temperatures from 500 K to 1000 K has been carried out using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The simulation is performed for models containing 10⁴ particles Fe at both crystalline and amorphous states. We determine changes of the potential energy, pair radial distribution function (PRDF) and distribution of coordination number (DCN) as a function of annealing time. The calculation shows that the aging slightly reduces the potential energy of system. This result evidences that the amorphous sample undergoes different quasi-equilibrated states during annealing. Similar trend is observed for nanoparticles sample. When the samples are annealed at high temperatures we observe the crystallization in both bulk and nanoparticle. In particular, the system undergoes three stages. At first stage the relaxation proceeds slowly so that the energy of system slightly decreases and the samples structure remains amorphous. Within second stage a structural transformation occurs which significantly changes PRDF and DCN for the relatively short time. The energy of the system is dropped considerably and the amorphous structure transforms into the crystalline. Finally, the crystalline sample undergoes the slow relaxation which reduces the energy of system and eliminates structural defects in crystal lattices.

We have studied dynamics in the liquid and amorphous Fe by means of molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. A series of MD models containing 10⁴ particles under periodic boundary conditions are prepared at temperatures from 290 K to 2250 K. It was shown that the second peak of the radial distribution function (RDF) appears to split when the liquid transforms to an amorphous solid. Further, we focus on local density fluctuations (LDF) which happen in simulated samples. We found that LDFs operate as a diffusion vehicle. The diffusion is performed by two types of LDFs. As the temperature decreases, LDFs are strongly correlated so that the fraction of I-type LDFs increases and the spatial distribution of LDFs is heterogeneous. We propose a new model for diffusion in liquid and amorphous solids which gives new insight into the dynamics slowdown below the melting point and diffusion mechanism in amorphous materials.

In this paper, rapid quenching of Ni from crystal to metallic glass (MG) at different external pressures is simulated by molecular dynamics. The pair distribution functions (PDFs), mean-square displacement, glass transition temperature ($T_g$) and elastic property are calculated and compared with each other. The split of the second PDF peak means the liquid’s transition to glass state starts as previously reported for other MGs. And the $R_i/R_1$ ratio rule is found to hold very well in Ni MG and reveals the SPO structural feature in the configurations. Moreover, with high external pressure, $T_g$ values are more approximated by density–temperature and enthalpy–temperature curves. At last, the elastic modulus and mechanics modulus of quenching models produced a monotonous effect with increasing external pressure and temperature.

The mixed spin-1/2 and spin-1 Blume–Capel model is studied with randomly alternated coordination numbers (CN) on the Bethe lattice (BL) by utilizing the exact recursion relations. Two different CNs are randomly distributed on the BL by using the standard–random (SR) approach. It is observed that this model presents first-order phase transitions and tricritical points for variations of CNs 3 and 4, even if these behaviors are not displayed for the regular mixed-spin on the BL. The phase diagrams are mapped by obtaining the phase transition temperatures of the first- and second-order on several planes.