The influence of oxygen and other impurities on the crystallization of NiZr2 and related metallic glasses

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Abstract
The role of oxygen and other impurities on the crystallization characteristics of Ni‐Zr glasses near the composition NiZr2, as well as for FeZr2, CoZr2, and NiHf2, has been investigated. For NiZr2 glasses with 1 at. % oxygen, the first crystallization product is the metastable E93 structure with a =1.227 nm instead of the equilibrium C16 structure. A similar effect is found for samples containing ≳3 at. % B. For FeZr2, CoZr2, and NiHf2 the first crystallization product is also E93 structure, even with very small levels of oxygen (≤0.2 at. %). The formation of the E93 structure is always accompanied by an increase in the electrical resistivity, an increase which transmission electron microscopy shows is intrinsic to the phase and unrelated to crystallite size. For Ni36.5Zr63.5 and Ni42Zr58 the crystallization is also accompanied by an increase in electrical resistance and the evolution of a crystal structure similar to the E93 structure in the size of the unit cell and packing fraction but with a different space group. We propose that the formation of these structures is triggered by atomic size nuclei of ZrO2, (or ZrB2) quenched in from the melt.