Beating Crystallization in Glass-Forming Metals by Millisecond Heating and Processing

The development of metal alloys that form glasses at modest cooling rates has stimulated broad scientific and technological interest. However, intervening crystallization of the liquid in even the most robust bulk metallic glass-formers is orders of magnitude faster than in many common polymers and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2011-05, Vol.332 (6031), p.828-833
Main Authors: Johnson, William L., Kaltenboeck, Georg, Demetriou, Marios D., Schramm, Joseph P., Liu, Xiao, Samwer, Konrad, Kim, C. Paul, Hofmann, Douglas C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alloys
Amorphous materials
Condensed matter: structure, mechanical and thermal properties
Cooling
Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science
rheology
Crystallization
Electrodes
Enthalpy
Equations of state, phase equilibria, and phase transitions
Exact sciences and technology
Glass transitions
Glasses (including metallic glasses)
Heat
Heating
Liquids
Materials science
Metallic glasses
Metals
Physics
Polymers
Resistance heating
Rheology
Silicates
Specific materials
Specific phase transitions
Stability
Temperature scales
Thermoplastics
Viscosity
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Summary:The development of metal alloys that form glasses at modest cooling rates has stimulated broad scientific and technological interest. However, intervening crystallization of the liquid in even the most robust bulk metallic glass-formers is orders of magnitude faster than in many common polymers and silicate glass-forming liquids. Crystallization limits experimental studies of the undercooled liquid and hampers efforts to plastically process metallic glasses. We have developed a method to rapidly and uniformly heat a metallic glass at rates of 10⁶ kelvin per second to temperatures spanning the undercooled liquid region. Liquid properties are subsequently measured on millisecond time scales at previously inaccessible temperatures under near-adiabatic conditions. Rapid thermoplastic forming of the undercooled liquid into complex net shapes is implemented under rheological conditions typically used in molding of plastics. By operating in the millisecond regime, we are able to "beat" the intervening crystallization and sucessfully process even marginal glass-forming alloys with very limited stability against crystallization that are not processable by conventional heating.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.1201362