In situ X-ray diffraction study of structural evaluation in Fe73Cu1.5Nd3Si13.5B9 amorphous alloy at high temperature

The thermodynamics structural relaxation of Fe₇₃Cu_1.5Nd₃Si_13.5B₉ amorphous alloy from room temperature to 400°C has been investigated by measuring the structure factor with in situ X-ray diffraction. The structural information of the atomic configuration such as radial distribution function (RDF) and neighbor atomic distance was gained by Fourier transformation. The research result shows that the amorphous structure remains stable in the temperature range of 30 to 400°C but exhibits distinct changes in local atomic configuration with the increase of temperature. The quantitative determination of the neighbor atomic distance suggests that the degree of short-range order changes by the temperature altering the second nearest neighbor local atomic configuration of the amorphous when structural relaxation occurs. Supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province of China (Grant No. A2007000296), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 50731005), SKPBRC (Grant Nos. 2007CB616915 and 2006CB605201), and PCSIRT (Grant No. IRT0650)