Static and dynamic crystallization in Mg–Cu–Y bulk metallic glass

The static and dynamic crystallization behavior of Mg65Cu25Y10 bulk metallic glass was investigated by X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry and transmission electron microscopy. It was found that the kinetics of both anisothermal and isothermal crystallization were adequately represented by the Kissinger and KJMA relations, respectively. The apparent activation energy for crystallization was calculated to be 139 kJ/mol; this value is close to the self diffusion of Mg in both a crystalline and non-crystalline matrix. The Avrami exponent was found to vary from 2.2 to 2.5 with increasing annealing temperature which implies that, at high annealing temperatures, nucleation occurs at a constant rate accompanied by diffusion-controlled growth of spherical grains. Tensile straining in the supercooled liquid region indicated that crystallization is slightly accelerated compared with static crystallization; this phenomenon was found to adversely affect the ductility of the alloy.