Abstract
Glass formation has been systematically studied in melt-spun Al-rich Al–Ni–RE (RE = La, Ce, Pr, Nd and Mm; Mm = misch metal) alloys by navigating the compositions following the observation of microstructure evolution in the resulting ribbons. The optimum glass-forming regions are similarly located around Al85Ni10RE5 and found in the centre of the composites with primary phase α-Al, Al11RE3 and Al3Ni. The similarities in the critical cross-section below which a component is fully amorphous and the optimum compositions in these Al–Ni–RE systems are interpreted in terms of their competing crystalline phases and thermodynamic properties. Interestingly, it is indicated that Ni content is markedly higher than RE content in the best glass-forming alloys, which may be associated with strong interaction between Ni–Al atom pairs and the dense packing due to Ni-centred clusters.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 50471076, 50323009). The authors are also with the multicomponent amorphous and nanocrystalline systems (MANS) research team, funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. We also would like to thank Prof. J. Xu for valuable discussion.