Electrical Resistance Relaxation in La₅₅Al₂₅Ni₁₀Cu₁₀ Bulk Metallic Glass

Abstract

Electrical resistance is always related to the electronic structure of metallic glass and sensitive to structural changes, which provides a more intuitive approach to investigate structure evolution of metallic glasses upon structural relaxation. Electrical resistance relaxation of the La55Al25Ni10Cu10 bulk metallic glass was studied using the standard four-probe method. The electrical resistance of La55Al25Ni10Cu10 bulk metallic glass decreases significantly with the structural relaxation below the glass transition temperature at 445 K. During the subsequent continuous heating, the relaxed specimen shows a reduction in the resistivity decrease at the glass transition. The relaxed electrical resistance caused by the structural relaxation during the isothermal measurement equals the changes of the electrical resistance reduction in the glass transition region in the subsequent isochronal measurements. The calculated relaxed electrical resistance as a function of the annealing time can be fitted by Kohlrausche-Williams-Watts (KWW) equation. The equilibrium value, time constant and the stretched exponent for the isochronal electrical resistance measurements at 445 K are 0.0384, 2390s and 0.66, respectively. The in-situ electrical resistance data recorded in the isothermal annealing process show the same relaxation behavior with fitting parameters 0.0362, 2033 s, and 0.74, respectively.