Structure and properties of some glass-forming liquid alloys

Some physical properties (kinematic viscosity, surface tension and magnetic susceptibility) of some Fe-baaed metallic melts of easily glass-forming al loys have been measured during heating and subsequent cooling. The results indicate that molten liquid metallic alloys undergo a number of structural transformations ranging from the initial microheterogeneous state formed af ter melting up to the true solution state. Studies by small angle neutron s cattering on a eutectic SnPb melt confirm this conclusion in that two famil ies of different sizes have been seen, one in the range 1 to 2 nm and one o f size larger than 100 nm. Both kind of particles have relatively sharp int erfaces and the size of the smaller particles is found to depend on tempera ture.