Study of phase transition in Zr₆₀Cu₁₅Ni₁₀Al₁₀Pd₅ metallic glass

The phase transition of Zr₆₀Cu₁₅Ni₁₀Al₁₀Pd₅ metallic glass is examined by the application of thermal treatment employed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). DSC experiments were carried out on the ribbon samples of Zr₆₀Cu₁₅Ni₁₀Al₁₀Pd₅ at five different heating rates i.e., 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 °C min^-1. A sharp crystallization peak is observed at 740 K at a heating rate of 10°C min^-1. Glass transition is not found to be prominent. To study the entire crystallization process different testing techniques are carried out to fit the experimental data. For the isothermal crystallization process, mainly two methods are used, i.e., iso-conversional and isokinetic methods. Iso-conversional methods provide activation energies at different values of crystallized fraction, whereas iso-kinetic methods provide single value of activation energy. Further, Iso-kinetic methods also provide the value of Avrami (growth) exponent which gives idea about the dimensionality of the crystal. Hence to study the complex crystallization process both the methods are equally important. (author)