Influence of the Ag concentration on the medium-range order in a CuZrAlAg bulk metallic glass.
Fluctuation electron microscopy of bulk metallic glasses of CuZrAl(Ag) demonstrates that medium-range order is sensitive to minor compositional changes. By analyzing nanodiffraction patterns medium-range order is detected with crystal-like motifs based on the B2 CuZr structure and its distorted structures resembling the martensitic ones. This result demonstrates some structural homology between the metallic glass and its high temperature crystalline phase. The amount of medium-range order seems slightly affected with increasing Ag concentration (0, 2, 5 at.%) but the structural motifs of the medium-range ordered clusters become more diverse at the highest Ag concentration. The decrease of dominant clusters is consistent with the destabilization of the B2 structure measured by calorimetry and accounts for the increased glass-forming ability.
Erich Schmid Institute of Materials Science, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Jahnstraße 12, 8700 Leoben, Austria.
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Gammer
IFW Dresden, Institute for Complex Materials, Helmholtzstraße 20, 01069 Dresden, Germany.
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Escher
University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics, Boltzmanngasse 5, 1090 Wien, Austria.
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Ebner
National Center for Electron Microscopy, Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.|Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
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Minor
University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics, Boltzmanngasse 5, 1090 Wien, Austria.
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Karnthaler
Erich Schmid Institute of Materials Science, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Jahnstraße 12, 8700 Leoben, Austria.|Department Materials Physics, Montanuniversität Leoben, Jahnstraße 12, 8700 Leoben, Austria.
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Eckert
IFW Dresden, Institute for Complex Materials, Helmholtzstraße 20, 01069 Dresden, Germany.
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Pauly
University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics, Boltzmanngasse 5, 1090 Wien, Austria.
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Rentenberger