Effect of tensile stress on the annealed structure of a metallic glass

The low-temperature (120°–245°C) structural relaxation of Metglas¯ 2826B (Ni49Fe29P14B6Si2) amorphous alloy was investigated for samples subjected to a tensile stress in the range of 20–400 MPa during annealing. The stress-annealed samples demonstrated a much smaller increase of microhardness than was observed in similarly annealed ribbons without a stress. Further heat treatment of the stress-annealed specimens, this time without the stress, was capable of increasing the microhardnesses of only some ribbons to values equal to those of samples similarly heat treated initially without a stress. An additional exothermic peak in the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) thermograms of the stress-annealed specimens indicated the presence of a more disordered structure at room temperature, which was found to correlate with the lower microhardness values. Otherwise, those artifacts of the DSC thermograms that were characteristic of samples annealed without a stress were still present in the stress-annealed ribbons. No effect on the crystallization temperature was noted but the glass transition temperature was increased in the stress-annealed case with respect to values attained when the stress was absent during heat treatment. A reduction in the degree of embrittlement of those samples annealed with a tensile stress was a further indication of more disorder in the stress-annealed ribbons.