The impact of nanoscale compositional variation on the properties of amorphous alloys

Ryota Gemma; Moritz To Baben; Astrid Pundt; Vassilios Kapaklis; Björgvin Hjörvarsson

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-67495-4

The impact of nanoscale compositional variation on the properties of amorphous alloys

Sci Rep. 2020 Jul 10;10(1):11410. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-67495-4.

Authors

Ryota Gemma^{1

2}, Moritz To Baben^{3

4

5}, Astrid Pundt^{6

7}, Vassilios Kapaklis³, Björgvin Hjörvarsson⁸

Affiliations

¹ Physical Sciences and Engineering Division, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia.
² Department of Materials Science, Tokai University, Kanagawa, Japan.
³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Box 516, 751 20, Uppsala, Sweden.
⁴ Materials Chemistry, RWTH Aachen University, Kopernikusstr. 10, 52074, Aachen, Germany.
⁵ GTT-Technologies, Kaiserstr. 103, 52134, Herzogenrath, Germany.
⁶ Institute of Applied Materials (IAM-WK), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology KIT, 76131, Karlsruhe, Germany.
⁷ Institute of Materials Physics, University of Göttingen, Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1, 37077, Göttingen, Germany.
⁸ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Box 516, 751 20, Uppsala, Sweden. [email protected].

Abstract

The atomic distribution in amorphous FeZr alloys is found to be close to random, nevertheless, the composition can not be viewed as being homogenous at the nm-scale. The spatial variation of the local composition is identified as the root of the unusual magnetic properties in amorphous [Formula: see text] alloys. The findings are discussed and generalised with respect to the physical properties of amorphous and crystalline materials.