Modification of Fe-B based metallic glasses using swift heavy ions

¹ Department of Electronic Materials Engineering, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
² GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, Darmstadt, Germany
³ Technische Universität Darmstadt Germany
⁴ Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherche sur les Ions, les Matériaux et la Photonique (CIMAP), Caen, France
⁵ Australian Synchrotron, 800 Blackburn Road, Clayton VIC 3168, Australia

^a Current address: Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil

Abstract

We report on small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) measurements of amorphous Fe₈₀B₂₀, Fe₈₅B₁₅, Fe₈₁B_13.5Si_3.5C₂, and Fe₄₀Ni₄₀B₂₀ metallic alloys irradiated with 11.1 MeV/u ¹³²Xe, ¹⁵²Sm, ¹⁹⁷Au, and 8.2 MeV/u ²³⁸U ions. SAXS experiments are nondestructive and give evidence for ion track formation including quantitative information about the size of the track radius. The measurements also indicate a cylindrical track structure with a sharp transition to the undamaged surrounding matrix material. Results are compared with calculations using an inelastic thermal spike model to deduce the critical energy loss for the track formation threshold. The damage recovery of ion tracks produced in Fe₈₀B₂₀ by 11.1 MeV/u ¹⁹⁷Au ions was studied by means of isochronal annealing yielding an activation energy of 0.4 ± 0.1 eV