Fe–Al–P–C–B bulk metallic glass with good mechanical and soft magnetic properties

• We developed a new family of Fe–Al–P–C–B bulk metallic glasses.
• Fe77Al3P9C9B2 bulk metallic glass with a critical diameter of 3 mm was obtained.
• The Fe77Al3P9C9B2 glassy alloy exhibits a significant plastic strain of about 5%.
• The saturation magnetization for this alloy is up to 1.36 T.

Fe-based bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) were fabricated in Fe–Al–P–C–B alloy system by copper mold casting. Among them, Fe77Al3P9C9B2 (at.%) alloy shows the best glass-forming ability yielding the formation of an amorphous cylinder rod with a diameter of 3.0 mm. This alloy exhibits a high compressive strength of more than 3000 MPa and an appreciable plastic strain of up to 5.0%. In addition, the present alloy also shows good soft magnetic properties, i.e., high saturation magnetization of about 1.36 T and low coercive force of about 2.1 A/m. The integration of high GFA, good mechanical and soft magnetic properties along with low materials cost for the Fe–Al–P–C–B BMG makes it a competitive candidate as structural and functional materials.