Thermal stability, crystallization and magnetic properties of Fe-Co-based metallic glasses

Abstract

The aim of the paper was to investigate thermal stability, crystallization and magnetic properties of Fe-Cobased metallic glasses (MGs). Investigations were carried out on amorphous ribbons with the compositions of [(Fe0.5Co0.5)0.75B0.2Si0.05]96Nb4 and [(Fe0.6Co0.3Ni0.1)0.75 B0.2Si 0.05]96Nb4. Thermal properties (liquidus Tl and melting Tm temperatures) of the pre-alloyed ingots upon heating and cooling were analyzed by DTA at a heating/ cooling rate of 0.33 K s-1 under the purified argon atmosphere. The structure of the ribbons was examined by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) method. Kinetics of the crystallization process was examined by applying differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) method, and experiments performed in thermal analysis involve heating at a constant rates b = 0.17, 0.33 and 0.5 K s-1. Additionally, the conventional crystallization temperature Tx was determined from the normalized isochronal resistivity curves a(T) with heating rate 0.0083 K s-1. a is the temperature coefficient of resistance and a = q-1 dq/dT. The Tx, can be obtained from the condition a = 0 (Stokłosa et al. in J Alloy Compd 509(37):9050–9054, 2011). The saturation magnetization M(T) was measured in situ with heating rates 0.083 K s-1 using magnetic balance (Szewieczek and Lesz in J Mater Process Tech 162–163:254–259, 2005).