Nanometer-Scale Heterogeneities of the Structure of Zirconium-Based Bulk Metallic Glasses

Structure of amorphous alloys ZrTiCuNiBe and ZrTiCuNiAl is studied by means of low-field ion and combined field-emission microscopy. In both alloys the structural heterogeneities of nanometer-scale are clearly revealed. The surface layers formed by field evaporation possess a cellular structure. The cells have polygonal shape with transverse size ranging from 2 nm to 20 nm. It is established that variance of the local energy of field evaporation is of 0%–5% in the cell body. A local minimum of the field evaporation energy is observed within the cell boundaries (intercluster boundaries). In the minimum the depth is measured to be of 0.8 eV.