Formation of quasicrystals by partial devitrification of ball-milled amorphous Zr57Ti8Nb2.5Cu13.9Ni11.1Al7.5

Amorphous Zr57Ti8Nb2.5Cu13.9Ni11.1Al7.5 powder with low oxygen contamination was prepared by ball milling of crystalline intermetallic compounds. The comparison with the corresponding alloy produced by melt spinning shows that the first crystallization phase does not depend on the way of preparation. In fact, devitrification of both powder and ribbon is characterized by the formation of a metastable nanoscale quasicrystalline phase during the first stage of the crystallization process. This suggests that both the amorphous ball-milled powder and the melt-spun ribbon have the same short-range order and that if this short-range order is icosahedral, it can be achieved also by solid-state processing. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.