Pressure effect on the crystallization behavior of Zr46.7Ti8.3Cu7.5Ni10Be27.5 bulk metallic glass

The pressure effect on the crystallization behavior of the bulk metallic glass Zr46.7Ti8.3Cu7.5Ni10Be27.5 (Vit4) with a wide supercooled liquid region has been investigated by in situ high-pressure and high-temperature X-ray powder diffraction measurements using synchrotron radiation. It was found that the primary and the final crystallization phases are pressure-dependent. In the studied pressure range of 0 to 4.5 GPa, the crystallization temperature increases little with pressure having a slope of 1.6 K/GPa, whereas, a much higher rate of 19 K/GPa was found for the neighboring alloy, Zr41Ti14Cu12.5Ni10Be22.5 (Vit1) by J.Z. Jiang et al. The different crystallization behaviour of Vit4 and Vit1 under pressure could be attributed to the different crystallization mechanisms and pressure-induced phase selections. As the important data of Vit4, the time–temperature transformation (TTT) diagram without and with a pressure of 1.75 GPa was also presented. It was found that thermal stability can be much enhanced by applying pressure due to pressure-induced suppression of atomic mobility.