材料期刊网

Differential scanning calorimetry and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were employed to investigate the crystallization kinetics of an amorphous Zr70Cu20Ni10 alloy. It has been found that the crystallization process is mainly controlled by three-dimensional nucleation and growth with an increasing nucleation rate. The activation energy for crystallization is approximately 388 kJ/mol. TEM observations confirmed that the primary precipitation phase during the isothermal crystallization process is the Zr2Ni phase, which can be partly attributed to the stronger binding nature between Zr and Ni atoms than that between Zr and Cu atoms.