High-throughput investigation of crystal-to-glass transformation of Ti–Ni–Cu ternary alloy

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.

Phase Evolution and Amorphous Stability upon Solid-State Reaction in Superlattice-Like Ge–Sb–Te Combinatorial Thin Films

“…In the process of data analysis, the thickness distribution data for the elements were converted into the atomic ratio distribution map of each element using the formula given in our previous work. 22 The resultant atomic ratio range is also consistent with the experimental design.…”

“…More details for the deposition process are described in our previous work. 22 SLL combinational thin films with three different modulation periods (10, 20, and 30 nm) were prepared in the TGS sequence, while only a 10 nm period was used for the STG sequence. Finally, a 2 nm silicon capping layer was deposited on top of the SLL thin-film stack to prevent the sample from oxidizing in air.…”

“…The thickness distribution data of all components are then combined to generate an elemental composition map, as described in our previous work. 22 The μ-XRD patterns were transformed into a collection of parameters including peak position, peak height, peak width, and so forth, using an automated data processing program. To determine the phase regions, hierarchical clustering analysis was adopted to group the diffraction patterns.…”

Review of the Design of Titanium Alloys with Low Elastic Modulus as Implant Materials

“…electrical conductivity, thermal expansion coefficients, and so on). This approach has been used in the design of many kinds of materials such as high-entropy alloys, [146][147][148][149] bulk metallic glasses, [145,[150][151][152] and Ti alloys [153][154][155] including those with a low elastic modulus. Teixeira et al [156] used a laser to deposit the pure Ti and pure Ta powders on a substrate to develop Ti-Ta alloys for biomedical applications.…”

A High-Throughput Structural and Electrochemical Study of Metallic Glass Formation in Ni–Ti–Al

“…However, high-throughput studies of MGs, including the one described above, are complicated due to the lack of methods for differentiating amorphous from crystalline samples. − This is particularly true in thin films where calorimetric techniques are difficult . A common method in the literature, applied to both thin-film and bulk samples, is to measure the full width at half maximum (fwhm) of the first sharp diffraction peak (FSDP) in the X-ray diffraction from the sample.…”