Amorphous transition in intermetallic compounds induced by electron irradiation

Abstract

It was recently found that a crystalline to amorphous (C-A) transition could be induced by in-situ electron irradiation in a high voltage electron microscope in such intermetallic compounds as Fe3B and NiTi. These findings are of considerable importance in that production of cascades is proved not to be a necessary condition for the C-A transition in crystals induced by particle irradiation. A question arises as to whether or not a similar C-A transition can be produced in other intermetallic compounds, because studies of electron irradiation damage in intermetallic compounds have so far failed to reveal such a transition. In this paper, a series of intermetallic compounds with different physical properties were prepared and irradiated with 2 MeV electrons and the relative ease of amorphous formation has been compared. Analysis of the results shows the tendency toward amorphization has a rough correlation with the extent of solubility of the particular compounds.