Bulk Amorphous Alloys
This chapter aims to review our recent research results on new bulk amorphous alloys. The main topics are the following: (1) the finding of new amorphous alloys with high glass-forming ability in a number of alloy systems; (2) the mechanism for achieving high glass-forming ability; (3) the fundamental properties of the new amorphous alloys; (4) successful examples of producing bulk amorphous alloys by different techniques of water quenching, metallic mold casting, arc melting and unidirectional zone melting, etc.; (5) the high tensile strength, low Young’s modulus, and high impact fracture energy of nonferrous metal-based bulk amorphous alloys; (6) the soft magnetic properties of Fe- and Co-based bulk amorphous alloys; (7) hard magnetic properties of Nd- and Pr-based bulk amorphous alloys; (8) the viscous flow and microformability of bulk amorphous alloys in a supercooled liquid region, and (9) future aspects of applications. These new results enable eliminating of the limitation of sample shape which has prevented the development of amorphous alloys as engineering materials. They are expected to give rise to a new era of amorphous alloys.