Radiation effects in amorphous metallic alloys. Final report

The alloys studied in this work were members of the series Fe/sub x/Ni/sub 80-x/P/sub y/B/sub 20-y/ (20 less than or equal to x less than or equal to 40; 0 less than or equal to y less than or equal to 14). Alloys were prepared as ribbons on a melt spinner. Irradiations were performed with electrons, protons, deuterons and alpha particles at 0.25 to 2.25 MeV. Measurements were made of Curie temperature, small-angle x-ray scattering intensity, recrystallization kinetics, low-temperature electrical resistivity, magnetic domain structure, composition of the ribbon and near-surface region (by TEM, RHEED, and Auger studies), and surface profiles by Rutherford backscattering. Ion implantation effects are reported. Results show that the effects of irradiation with these light particles are very similar to those of thermal annealing, viz. structural relaxation to an amorphous state of lower energy than that achieved upon rapid freezing. Irradiation effects are interpreted qualitatively in terms of transient heating around the path of a projectile; direct atomic collisions apparently play a minor role