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Gas atomization which is a conventional technique inpowder metallurgyis adapted for the formation of metallic glass nanowires. This approachis able to produce a large quantity of nanowires with diameters inthe 50–2000 nm range. Experiments performed with differentconditions and alloy compositions confirm that the key mechanism ofthe nanowire formation is the spinnability which increases exponentiallywhen the melt stream is supercooled from the liquid state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atomic force microscope (AFM) makes it possible to image the surface morphological evolutions of the Zr50Cu40Al10 bulk metallic glass (BMG). The heating in vacuum leads to the creation of nanoclusters and the significant structural changes driven by viscous flow. Auger electron spectroscopy confirms that the nanoclusters correspond to zirconium oxide. Furthermore, the nanoclusters do not influence the crystallization process of the BMG but the viscous flow is crucial to surface modification. The temperature dependent AFM observation combined with chemical analysis is a new protocol to study fundamental properties of BMG surfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]