Thermal stability of Zr₅₅Al₁₀Ni₅Cu₃₀ bulk amorphous alloy during continuous heating and isothermal annealing

The crystallization behavior of Zr₅₅Al₁₀Ni₅Cu₃₀ (mole fraction, %) bulk amorphous alloy during continuous heating and isothermal annealing was investigated. The results show that there exists a first order exponential decay relation between the characteristic temperatures and the heating rates during continuous heating process. The activation energy for glass transition E_g and that for crystallization E_p and E_x during continuous heating were evaluated by Kissinger plots. In addition, there is a second order exponential decay relation between the annealing temperature and the corresponding crystallization time during isothermal annealing. The isothermal activation energy obtained by Arrhenius equation increases as crystallization proceeds, indicating the sufficient stability of the residual amorphous structure after initial crystallization.