By taking into account the valence electron number and periodic number of constituting metals, a new method is first proposed to calculate the structural enthalpy in the Miedema's model and the modified Miedema's model is then used to predict the formation of metastable phases in Ni-Ti system. To testify the relevance of the present prediction, the multilayered films of Ni1-xTix (x=27.3, 30.5, 42.4, 83.1, 89) are prepared and irradiated by 200 keV xenon ions. Experiment results reveal that uniform amorphous phases are obtained in the Ni72.7Ti27.3, Ni69.5Ti30.5, and Ni57.6Ti42.4 films by increasing the irradiation dose. While for the Ni16.9Ti83.1 and Ni11Ti89 films, an hcp Ti-based solid solution phase and a bcc Ti-rich solid solution phase coexist upon irradiation dose higher than 6×1014 Xe+/cm2. The predictions of relative stabilities of metastable phases in Ni-Ti system by the modified Miedema's model match well with IBM experiments, thus justifying the modification proposed in the present study.
Single-phase and dual-phase metallic glasses as well as metallic glass based composites were synthesized in the Cu-Mo-Hf ternary metal system by 200 keV xenon ion beam mixing of far-from-equilibrium. It was found that Mo-Hf-based and Cu-Mo-based single-phase metallic glasses could be obtained at compositions around Cu17Mo20Hf63 and Cu34Mo57Hf9, respectively. Interestingly, at the nearly equal-atomic stoichiometry of Cu38Mo31Hf31, a dual-phase Cu-Mo-Hf metallic glass, consisting both of the Mo-Hf-based and Cu-Mo-based phases, was first obtained at relatively low irradiation doses ranging from (1-5)×1015 Xe+/cm2, and a single-phase metallic glass was eventually obtained at a dose of 7×1015 Xe+/cm2. In addition, two glass-based composites were obtained at the compositions of Cu14Mo62Hf24 and Cu77Mo14Hf9, and they consisted of the Mo-Hf based and Cu-Mo based metallic glasses, dissolved with some uniformly distributed BCC Mo-based and FCC Cu-based crystalline solid solutions, respectively. The formation mechanism of the above described non-equilibrium alloy phases was also discussed in terms of the atomic collision theory.
BAI XueWANG TongLeCUI YuanYuanDING NingLI JiaHaoLIU BaiXin
In the ion beam mixing experiments,eight Fe-Hf-Nb multilayered films,with overall compositions of Fe67Hf22Nb11,Fe67Hf11Nb22,Fe54Hf38Nb8,Fe54Hf30Nb16,Fe54Hf11Nb35,Fe25Hf67Nb8,Fe25Hf50Nb25 and Fe25Hf11Nb64,were irradiated by 200 keV xenon ions to doses ranging from 3×1014 Xe+/cm2 to 7×1015 Xe+/cm2.The results showed that unique amorphous phases were obtained at designed alloy compositions,falling in the favored glass-forming region deduced from three binary metal sub-systems.Interestingly,at some alloy compositions,the crystal-amorphous-crystal transformations were observed back and forth while varying the irradiation doses.In addition,at the alloy composition of Fe25Hf67Nb8,a metastable FCC phase was formed through an HCP-FCC structural phase transformation and it had a large lattice constant identified to be a=4.51 .Besides,the formation mechanism of non-equilibrium alloy phases was also discussed in terms of thermodynamics of solids and atomic collision theory.
For the Pd-Ta system characterized by a negative heat of formation of -78 kJ/mol, 200 keV xenon ion beam mixing with nano-sized Pd-Ta multilayered films was conducted to study the non-equilibrium phase formation. The results showed that uniform amorphous alloys can be formed within a composition range of 25 at%-78 at% Ta, which falls in the maximum possible amorphization range of 22 at%-80 at% Ta predicted by the empirical model. Moreover, two metastable crystalline phases both of FCC structure, yet with different lattice constants were obtained. Interestingly, a self-assembled fractal pattern was observed in the Pd52Ta48 multilayered films after irradiation to a dose of 1×1015 Xe+/cm2 and its dimension was determined to be 1.75±0.05. The possible mechanisms for the formation of amorphous and metastable crystalline phases as well as for the growth of the fractal pattern were discussed.
