Study on the thermal stability of Cu-P based amorphous alloy systems

The crystallization temperatures and other thermal properties have been mea sured systematically for two ternary Cu-Ni-P and two quaternary Cu-Ni-Sn-P amorphous systems. The dependence of crystallization temperature on the com position for the four alloy systems can not be described basically by the u sual used Naka rule. The Gibbs free energy of crystallization can be calcul ated for the alloy systems with the model proposed by Shu et al. Using the calculated free energy of crystallization, it is still not possible to prop erly describe all of the crystallization temperatures of the alloy systems. However, it has been found that the correlation between the crystallizatio n temperature and the content of the alloy systems can be reasonably explai ned by the nucleation and growth rates of a new phase for the classical the ory of phase transformation. It has been established that the classical the ory of phase transformation can be used to describe the thermal stability o f the Cu-based amorphous alloys during their crystallization process. (C) 1 999 Published by Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.