Relationship of glass formation ability and eutectics in ternary Ni-Zr-B system

Five Ni-Zr-B ternary eutectic alloys were synthesized by means of melt spinning and were found "amorphous" by standard surface x-ray diffraction. The thermal stability was determined by differential scanning calorimetry. Glass-formation ability (GFA) was characterized by reduced glass transition temperature among the five "amorphous" alloys. The existence of intermetallic compounds which are structurally complex and have bigger lattice parameters is proved to enhance the higher GFA. The effective suppression of nucleation and growth of intermetallic compounds plays a very important role for the glass formation.