Atomic short-range order of amorphous Ta-Cu alloys prepared by mechanical alloying

Abstract

In the present work, the atomic short-range ordering structure of the amorphous Ta-Cu alloys formed by mechanical alloying was investigated through radial distribution function (RDF) analysis. The results suggest that the elemental powders of Ta and Cu were well mixed by mechanical alloying at atomic level. The regions of short-range order (rs) increase with Cu concentration in Ta-Cu alloys. This means that the short-range ordering becomes stronger in those alloys with higher Cu content. The coordination number was estimated to be 12-13 from the area under the first maximum of the RDF (r) curves for all the Ta-Cu amorphous alloys. This result indicates that the amorphous alloys formed by mechanical alloying are also of topologically dense-packing structure.