Phase transformations in a Cu-Zr-Al metallic glass

A combination of conventional calorimetry, ultra-fast scanning calorimetry and resistive heating gives access to heating rates exceeding 6 orders of magnitude allowing to probe crystallization kinetics and mechanisms in a Cu-Zr-Al metallic glass. Continuous-heating-transformation and double-peak timetemperature-transformation diagrams are constructed and related to the formation of glass-crystal composites with enhanced ductility. The metastable B2-CuZr phase becomes dominantly formed at a heating rate of similar to 10(2) K s(-1) and higher. A critical heating rate to bypass crystallization is similar to 10,000 K s(-1). For isothermal annealing at >850 K, only one crystallization event is detected; for lower temperatures, a complex two-step transformation occurs. (C) 2020 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.