Effect of thermal cycling treatment on local structure, thermal stability and magnetic properties of Fe80Si8.75B10Cu1.25 metallic glass

In this study, we have investigated variations in the local structure and thermal stability of Fe80Si8.75B10Cu1.25 amorphous ribbons after thermal cycling treatment between room temperature and 77 K. All samples are characterized by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, magnetometry and Transmission Mössbauer spectroscopy. It confirms that the structure of melt spun ribbons is much compacted after thermal cycling treatment. In addition, the nucleation and growth activation energies of α-Fe significantly increase after thermal cycling. Moreover, an increase of the saturation flux density from 1.46 T to 1.55 T and a decrease of coercivity from 9.21 A/m to 8.54 A/m can be achieved by the thermal cycling treatment.