Determination of correlation function for aged metallic glass by SAXS

Abstract

Heating metallic glass up to a certain temperature and holding it for some time at that temperature, causes crystallization. There is a density difference between the crystalline phase and the amorphous phase. For aged metallic glass, the small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) owes its origin to this density difference. Therefore, the SAXS technique is a useful method to study the structure of metallic glass. SAXS is not equally sensitive to all metallic glasses. A correlation function of two-phase systems can be determined by SAXS with some important parameters, such as inner specific surface, coherence length, etc. In this work, a correlation function for the two-phase system in aged Cu[sub 73]Sn[sub 6]Ni[sub 6]P[sub 15] metallic glass was determined by SAXS. The specific inner surface and coherence length for the two-phase system was determined by using the obtained correlation function.