Influence of the liquid states on the crystallization process of nanocrystal-forming Zr-Cu-Pd-Al metallic glasses

Rapidly solidified ribbons of nanocrystal-forming Zr-Cu-Pd-Al metallic glasses were prepared at various liquid temperatures (T-L). Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) traces show clearly the influence of the liquid states on the thermal properties and crystallization process. Namely, with increasing T-L, the exothermal peaks of the DSC traces shift to higher temperatures, the super-cooled-liquid region Delta T-x increases, and the decomposition of the metastable compound Zr-2(Cu, Pd) becomes more difficult. These results suggest that the liquid state strongly controls the crystallization process of the nanocrystal-forming metallic glasses. This behavior may originate from the variation of the quenched-in nuclei, which highly depends on the short-range-order domains in liquid with different T-L. We suggest that the stronger attractive interaction in Zr-Pd, which exhibits large negative mixing enthalpy, leads to the short-range order domains. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)03449-X].