Microstructure and Magnetic Properties of Nanocrystalline Fe-Cr-Based Metallic Glasses

The nanocrystalline Fe66Cr8Cu1Nb3Si13B9 metallic glass with relatively low Curie temperature of the amorphous matrix has been proposed as a particulate medium showing superparamagnetic behavior at elevated temperatures. The samples of this material with different volumetric fractions of the crystalline phase, were characterized by differential thermal analysis, X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy as well as by temperature dependencies of saturation magnetization and isothermal magnetization curves. The correlation between the structural parameters determined by direct measurements and those estimated from the magnetic studies is shown and discussed in terms of a new algorithm which allows to determine a distribution of the particle magnetic moments.