Devitrification of Heterogeneous Metallic Glasses
The effect of the structure of alloying elements and their solubility in the main component of the alloy on the formation of nanocrystals in the amorphous phase has been investigated. The mechanism of the formation of nanocrystals based on the similarity of short-range order in ordered regions of a heterogeneous amorphous structure and the structure of a crystallizing phase is considered. It is shown that the presence of structurally related ordered regions provides a large number of potential nucleation sites for nanocrystals and facilitates the process of nanocrystallization. Since the fraction of the crystalline phase formed by the primary crystallization reaction is determined by the phase equilibrium diagram, an increase in the number of such regions leads to the formation of a structure with a smaller nanocrystal size. The parameters of the resulting nanostructure depend on the type of alloying element, its concentration, and also the solubility in the main metal component of the alloy. The results obtained indicate the possible realization of the mechanism of the formation of nanocrystals on ordered regions in the heterogeneous amorphous phase of metallic glasses.