Solid state amorphisation in binary systems prepared by mechanical alloying

In the present work a detailed study of amorphisation in different systems prepared by mechanical alloying under the same experimental conditions was carried out, milling up to 50 and 100 h in some cases. The systems studied were: AlTi, AlNi, AlFe, FeNi, FeCo, NiMo, NiW, NiCo, MoW, CoMo. These systems were chosen to study the effect of Al-transition metal, transition metal–transition metal and also systems with large and small negative heat of mixing, different and similar crystal structures, atomic sizes and diffusion coefficients. Calculations based on the Miedema model for alloy formation and amorphisation on all the alloys studied were performed. The experimental results from X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy showed that the systems based on Fe (FeNi, FeCo and FeAl) did not amorphised, even after milling for 100 h, and formed a stable solid solution with a nanometric grain size of 7 nm. The systems NiMo, NiW, MoW and CoMo (systems with small negative heat of mixing), showed amorphisation after 50 h of milling. NiAl and TiAl form an intermediate amorphous phase after around 20 h of milling and with further milling they recrystallize into a fcc solid solution. Agreement between the theoretical calculations based on the Miedema model and the experimental results was found in most of the systems.