Structural study of Amorphous Fe70M10B20 (M=Zr, Nb and Cr) alloys by X-ray diffraction

The local atomic structures in the amorphous Fe70Zr10B20, Fe70Nb10B20 and Fe70Cr10B20 alloys with different ΔTx were studied by the ordinary X-ray diffraction, anomalous X-ray scattering (AXS) measurements and EXAFS analyses. The essential features of the atomic structures resemble in these amorphous alloys. Only the difference in the local atomic structure is a distorted shape of the triangular prism due to the size difference between Fe and M. From the correspondence of the size difference with ΔTx and the study of the crystallization process by the DSC measurements and the X-ray diffraction method, we conclude that the difference of their thermal stability is closely related with the difficulty of rearrangements of the prisms during crystallization.