High-throughput investigation of crystal-to-glass transformation of Ti\u2013Ni\u2013Cu ternary alloy

Jian Hui,Zheyu Wu,Hong Wang,Yang Ren,Lanting Zhang,Hengrui Zhang,Haiqian Ma,Zhan Zhang

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-56129-z

Abstract

A high-throughput investigation of metallic glass formation via solid-state reaction was reported in this paper. Combinatorial multilayered thin-film chips covering the entire Ti–Ni–Cu ternary system were prepared using ion beam sputtering technique. Microbeam synchrotron X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) measurements were conducted, with 1,325 data points collected from each chip, to map out the composition and the phase constitution before and after annealing at 373 K for 110 hours. The composition dependence of the crystal-to-glass transition by solid-state reaction was surveyed using this approach. The resulting composition–phase map is consistent with previously reported results. Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy (ToF-SIMS) was performed on the representative compositions to determine the inter-diffusion between layers, the result shows that the diffusion of Ti is the key factor for the crystal-to-glass transition. In addition, both layer thickness and layer sequence play important roles as well. This work demonstrates that combinatorial chip technique is an efficient way for systematic and rapid study of crystal-to-glass transition for multi-component alloy systems.

Highlights

Metallic glasses (MGs) are metal alloys that lack long-range order or periodicity
Combinatorial multilayered thin film synthesis technique provides advantage in studying the interlayer diffusion, with which a vast number of multi-layer stacks are fabricated in parallel on one substrate by varying the thicknesses of each component deposited at different positions[12,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29]
We have demonstrated a new high-throughput approach enabling systematic and rapid study of the crystal-to-glass transformation of ternary alloys via solid-state reaction

Summary

Introduction

Metallic glasses (MGs) are metal alloys that lack long-range order or periodicity. They often possess some exceptional characteristics that are unattainable from crystalline alloys, such as outstanding mechanical properties[1,2,3] and processability[4]. In the 1980s, a new category of amorphization techniques based on solid-state reactions was developed, such as mechanical alloying[6], ion beam mixing[7], hydrogen absorption[8], and interlayer diffusion[9,10], to transform crystalline precursors of powder or thin film into metallic glasses. Combinatorial multilayered thin film synthesis technique provides advantage in studying the interlayer diffusion, with which a vast number of multi-layer stacks are fabricated in parallel on one substrate by varying the thicknesses of each component deposited at different positions[12,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29]. Our results demonstrated a high-throughput strategy to systematic and rapid study of crystal-to-glass transition for ternary alloy systems

Methods

Results

Conclusion