Local atomic correlations of bulk amorphous ZrTiCuNiBe alloys

Samples of bulk amorphous Zr41Ti14Cu12.5Ni10Be22.5 and two related alloys h ave been heat treated in the supercooled liquid state and above the crystal lization temperature. Wide angle neutron scattering experiments lead to ver y similar total structure factors S(Q) for both states. They show the chara cteristic modulations of amorphous material. The total pair correlation fun ctions g(R) obtained by Fourier transformation of S(Q) exhibit three main g roups of peaks corresponding to the coordination shells. For all samples an d heat treatments the total coordination numbers for the first coordination shell are Z=12 +/- 0.7 indicating a dense packing of the atoms. By assigni ng pair correlations to the different maxima in g(R) partial coordination n umbers of Be and Zr were estimated (C) 1999 Acta Metallurgica Inc.