Crystallization Kinetics and Fragility of Al-Based Amorphous Alloy

Crystallization among amorphous alloy is a crucial study since it generally affects it properties, which may detrimental or beneficial, depending in the intended application of the materials. Controlling crystallization is crucial for obtaining the desired properties. The crystallization study was performed using differential scanning calorimeter (DSC). Samples were heated at heating rate between 20 and 40 K·min-1. Structural evolution during crystallization was studied under X-ray diffraction (XRD). Apparent activation energy for each temperature characteristics was determined using Kissinger’s equation. Local Avrami exponent was investigated using modified Johnson-Mehl-Avrami-Kolgomorov equation. Liquid fragility, which indicates the strength of the glass formation, was predicted using temperature characteristics instead of its viscosity. It was found that upon crystallization both as-cast samples crystallize to cubic-Al, Al2CuMg and Al2Cu and Al3Ni. Alloy with composition of (Al75Cu17Mg8)95Ni5 shows superior activation energy at every temperature characteristics than alloy with composition of Al75Cu10Mg8Ni7. Local Avrami exponent and local activation energy for (Al75Cu17Mg8)95Ni5 show high values at the beginning and at the end of crystallization process. From liquid fragility, it was predicted that the samples are stronger glass former than previous studied Al-amorphous alloys.

Deconvolution of local activation energy of hopping conductivity: Application to p-Ge

A new method for analyzing the local reduced activation energy [Formula: see text] of the impurity conductivity is applied to Ga-doped [Formula: see text]-Ge samples with a constant compensation ratio of [Formula: see text] reported by Zabrodskii and Andreev [Int. J. Mod. Phys. B 8, 883 (1994)]. Here, the local reduced activation energy is defined as [Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] denote conductivity and absolute temperature, respectively. The method enables us to deconvolute the [Formula: see text] curve into contributions from different conduction mechanisms such as free-hole conduction, nearest-neighbor hopping (NNH) conduction and variable-range hopping (VRH) conduction. As a result, it is shown that both the power exponents of the pre-exponential factors of NNH and VRH conductivity tend to decrease with increasing impurity concentration.

Effect of cobalt content on non-isothermal crystallization kinetics of Fe-based amorphous alloys

In the present study, FeSiBP and FeCoSiBP ribbons with a fully amorphous structure were made by melt spinning technique. A detailed analysis of the isochronal crystallization behavior is presented in this paper. The influence of cobalt on the crystallization kinetics of the alloys was studied under isochronal conditions using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Apparent and local activation energy values were determined by Kissinger, Ozawa and Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose (KAS) methods. The results indicate that appropriate amounts of cobalt can significantly enhance the thermal stability of Fe-based alloys, through an increase in nucleation activation energy from 538kJ/mol to 701kJ/mol, obtained by Kissinger method. Furthermore, with the method proposed by Matusita, it was possible to obtain global values for the Avrami exponent, noting that from a general perspective, Co changes the mechanism from diffusion controlled to interface controlled. This leads to the conclusion that the crystallization process is complex and takes place in more than one stage. Therefore, the determination of nucleation mechanisms and dimensional growth is difficult due to the inapplicability of the Johnson-Melh-Avrami (JMA) model. As such, a study under isothermal conditions is suggested, in order to achieve a full understanding of the mechanisms involved.

Measuring the activation energy barrier for the nucleation of single nanosized vapor bubbles

Heterogeneous bubble nucleation is one of the most fundamental interfacial processes that has received broad interest from diverse fields of physics and chemistry. While most studies focused on large microbubbles, here we employed a surface plasmon resonance microscopy to measure the nucleation rate constant and activation energy barrier of single nanosized embryo vapor bubbles upon heating a flat gold film with a focused laser beam. Image analysis allowed for simultaneously determining the local temperature and local nucleation rate constant from the same batch of optical images. By analyzing the dependence of nucleation rate constant on temperature, we were able to calculate the local activation energy barrier within a submicrometer spot. Scanning the substrate further led to a nucleation rate map with a spatial resolution of 100 nm, which revealed no correlation with the local roughness. These results indicate that facet structure and surface chemistry, rather than geometrical roughness, regulated the activation energy barrier for heterogeneous nucleation of embryo nanobubbles.

Understanding thermal decomposition kinetics of flame-retardant thermoset polylactic acid

The Flynn–Wall–Ozawa method was applied to study the local activation energy of flame retardant thermoset PLA, and the results showed that with an increase of conversion of thermal degradation, the local activation energy was increased slowly.

Crystallization Kinetics in Cu64.5Zr35.5 Binary Metallic Glass

The crystallization kinetics of melt-spun Cu64.5Zr35.5 amorphous alloy ribbons was investigated using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) at different heating rates. Besides, the Kissinger and isoconversional approaches were used to obtain the crystallization kinetic parameters. As shown in the results, the activation energies for glass transition and crystallization process at the onset, peak and end crystallization temperatures were obtained by means of Kissinger equation to be 577.65 ± 34, 539.86 ± 54, 518.25 ± 20 and 224.84 ± 2 kJ/mol, respectively. The nucleation activation energy Enucleation is greater than grain growth activation energy Egrowth, indicating that the nucleation process is harder than grain growth. The local activation energy Eα decreases in the whole crystallization process, which suggests that crystallization process is increasingly easy.

Isothermal Crystallization Behavior of Cu42Zr42Al8Ag8 BMG Investigated with Electrical Resistance Measurement

The isothermal crystallization behavior of the Cu42Zr42Al8Ag8 bulk metallic glasse (BMG) was studied by the electrical resistance method. The increasing local activation energy means that the crystallization of the Cu42Zr42Al8Ag8 BMG becomes more and more difficult during the isothermal process. In the stage that the crystallized volume fraction falls into the range of 25–85%, the crystallization of the Cu42Zr42Al8Ag8 BMG is diffusion-controlled growth with a decreasing nucleation rate.

Kinetics Study on Non-Isothermal Crystallization of Amorphous Alloy Mg65Cu15Ag10Y10

The crystallization kinetics of amorphous alloy Mg65Cu15Ag10Y10has been studied by differential scanning calorimetry in the mode of continuous heating annealing. It is found that both DSC curves and activation energy show a strong dependence on the heating rate. The activation energy for crystallization are determined as 186.1 and 184.4 KJ mol−1for the heating rates β=5-20 Kmin−1, and 107.5 and 110.0 KJmol−1for the heating rates β=20-80Kmin−1, when using the Kissinger equation and the Ozawa equation, respectively. Local activation energy at any volume fraction crystallized was obtained by the general Ozawa's isoconversional method. The average value of local activation energy for heating rates ranging from 5 to 20Kmin−1is 180.9 KJ mol−1and for heating rates ranging between 20 and 80Kmin−1is 110.2 KJ mol−1. Using the Suriñach curve fitting procedure, the kinetics mode was specified. The JMA kinetics is manifested as a rule in the early stages of the crystallization. The JMA exponent,n, initially being larger than 4 and continuously decreases to about 2 along with the development of crystallization. The NGG-like mode dominates in the advanced stages of the transformation. These two modes are mutually independent. The proportion between the JMA-like and the NGG-like modes is related to the heating rate.

Crystallization Kinetics of the Cu47.5Zr47.5Al5 Bulk Metallic Glass under Continuous and Iso-Thermal Heating

The crystallization kinetics of Cu47.5Zr47.5Al5 BMG was studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) using the mode of continuous heating and isothermal annealing. It is found that Tg, Tx, and Tp, display a dependence on the heating rate in the case of continuous heating. The activation energies, Eg, Ex and Tp determined by the Kissinger method, yield 445, 264 and 285 kJ/mol, respectively. The local activation energy, E(x), was determined by the Doyle-Ozawa method, which gives the average activation energy 204 kJ/mol. On the other hand, the isothermal kinetics was modeled by the Johnson-Mehl-Avrami (JMA) equation, the Avrami exponent versus crystallization fraction was calculated at different temperatures. Details of nucleation and growth behaviors are discussed in terms of the local Avrami exponent and local activation energy during the isothermal crystallization. X-ray shows that the quenched BMG only includes the glass single phase. The BMG heated to 873 K has the precipitation of the body-center cubic (BCC) CuZr.