Formation of amorphous phases in an immiscible Cu–Nb system studied by molecular dynamics simulation and ion beam mixing

An n-body potential is constructed and applied to investigate the crystal-to-amorphous transition of the immiscible Cu–Nb system by molecular dynamics simulation. It is found that supersaturated solid solutions could turn into disordered states when the composition falls into the range of about 15–72 at.% Nb, suggesting that amorphous alloy could be formed in this range for the Cu–Nb system. Interestingly, amorphous phases are obtained in the Cu70Nb30 and Cu30Nb70 multilayered films upon ion beam mixing.