UNDERCOOLING INVESTIGATIONS AND HEAT-CAPACITY MEASUREMENTS ON PD-NI-P MELTS

The system Pd-Ni-P is well-known for its pronounced ability to form a metallic glass. Studies of the undercooling behaviour of the liquid alloy were carried out in a DTA facility applying the melt-fluxing technique at various cooling rates and overheating temperatures. This technique has been employed to seek the possibility of in situ investigations of the heat capacity of the undercooled liquid. The measurements show that crystallization can be avoided even for cooling rates as low as 10 K/min if a sample is exposed several times to overheating temperatures > 1270 K in the B2O3 flux. This allows for specific heat measurements over a substantial undercooling range, if the fluxing method can be adapted for application in calibrated DTA devices. Heat capacities, C(p)(T), of the alloy in its undercooled liquid, glassy and crystallized states were measured by standard differential scanning calorimetry and compared with first results using differential thermal analysis techniques on fluxed samples.