Structural, thermal, and photoacoustic study of nanocrystalline Cr3Ge produced by mechanical alloying

A thermodynamic analysis of the Cr-Ge system suggested that it was possible to produce a nanostructured Cr3Ge phase by mechanical alloying. The same analysis showed that, due to low activation energies, Cr-poor crystalline and/or amorphous alloy could also be formed. In fact, when the experiment was performed, Cr11Ge19 and amorphous phases were present for small milling times. For milling times larger than 15 h these additional phases decomposed and only the nanostructured Cr3Ge phase remained up to the highest milling time used (32 h). From the differential scanning calorimetry measurements, the Avrami exponent n was obtained, indicating that the nucleation and growth of the nanostructured Cr3Ge phase may be restricted to one or two dimensions, where the Cr and Ge atoms diffuse along the surface and grain boundaries. In addition, contributions from three-dimensional diffusion with a constant nucleation rate may be present. The thermal diffusivity of the nanostructured Cr3Ge phase was determined by photoa...