Summary. This chapter aims to review our recent research results on new bulk amorphous alloys. The main topics are the following: (1) the finding of new amorphous alloys with high glass-forming ability in a number of alloy systems; (2) the mechanism for achieving high glass-forming ability; (3) the fundamental properties of the new amorphous alloys; (4) successful examples of producing bulk amorphous alloys by different techniques of water quenching, metallic mold casting, arc melting and unidirectional zone melting, etc.; (5) the high tensile strength, low Young's modulus, and high impact fracture energy of nonferrous metal-based bulk amorphous alloys; (6) the soft magnetic properties of Fe-and Co-based bulk amorphous alloys; (7) hard magnetic properties of Nd-and Pr-based bulk amorphous alloys; (8) the viscous flow and microformability of bulk amorphous alloys in a supercooled liquid region, and (9) future aspects of applications. These new results enable eliminating of the limitation of sample shape which has prevented the development of amorphous alloys as engineering materials. They are expected to give rise to a new era of amorphous alloys.
History of Bulk Amorphous AlloysSince an amorphous phase was prepared in the Au-Si system by rapid solidification by Klement et al. in 1960 [1], a great number of scientific and engineering data for amorphous alloys have been accumulated. As a result, it has been clarified that amorphous alloys have new alloy compositions and new atomic configurations which differ from those of crystalline alloys. These features have facilitated the appearance of various characteristics, such as good mechanical properties, useful physical properties and unique chemical properties [2-5J which have not been obtained from conventional crystalline alloys.Recently, amorphous alloys have also attracted increasing interest as precursors to produce nanocrystalline alloys by crystallization because of good mechanical properties [6,7J, soft magnetism [8,9], hard magnetism [10][11][12], high magnetostriction in low applied fields [13], and high catalytic properties [14J which have not been obtained on ordinary amorphous or crystalline alloys. Based on these results, the scientific and engineering importance of amorphous and nanocrystalline alloys has steadily increased for the last three decades. When attention is paid to bulk amorphous alloys with low critical cooling rates (Rc) for glass formation, it is known that Pd4oNi4oP2o [15J and Pd76CU6Si18 [16J amorphous alloys can be produced in a bulk form with diameters up to 3 mm and 0.3 mm, respectively, by water quenching. Subsequently,
A. Inoue et al. (eds.), Amorphous and Nanocrystalline Materials