Preparation of Fe-Zr-B amorphous alloys by chemical reduction

Amorphous Fe-Zr-B alloys are of interest because of the intriguing magnetic properties they display, from paramagnetism to ferromagnetism to re-entran t spin glass phases, with, in some cases, all three states in one sample. T he standard method of preparing such alloys is melt quenching. Presented in this paper is the first data on amorphous FeZr-B alloys prepared by a chem ical route: the reduction of an aqueous solution of iron sulphate and zirco nium sulphate with an aqueous solution of sodium borohydride. Full characte risation data obtained by X-ray diffraction, Mossbauer spectroscopy, differ ential scanning calorimetry, FT-IR spectroscopy, EDAX and scanning electron microscopy, electron microprobe analysis and X-ray photoelectron spectrosc opy are presented, and the amorphicity of the product is verified. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.