Structural relaxation in amorphous Fe/sub 40/Ni/sub 40/B/sub 20/

During structural relaxation of amorphous Fe/sub 40/Ni/sub 40/B/sub 20/ a variety of physical properties was measured: Young's modulus, electrical resistivity, length and viscosity. The observed changes are of the order of 1% in the first three cases and a factor of 10-100 for the viscosity. The results can be successfully interpreted by a model which discriminates between two separate contributions to structural relaxation: Chemical Short Range Ordering (CSRO) and Topological Short Range Ordering (TSRO). The first process contains a broad spectrum of activation energies (130 - 250 kJ/mol), whereas the second one can be well described quantitatively by the formalism of the free volume model with a single activation energy of 250 kJ/mol