The effect of Mo on the glass forming ability, mechanical and magnetic properties of FePC ternary bulk metallic glasses

Bulk magnetic Fe80-xMoxP 13C7 (x = 0, 3, 6, 9 and 12 at.%) glassy alloys were successfully prepared by the fluxing technique and J-quenching technique. The effect of Mo substitution for Fe on the glass formation ability (GFA), thermal stability, mechanical properties and magnetic properties has been studied systematically. It was found that the substitution of a small amount of Mo for Fe can dramatically enhance the GFA, which in turn, the critical maximum diameter for fully glass formation reached to 5.5 mm for x = 3 and 6.0 mm for x = 6, respectively. However, excessive substitution will promote the formation of Fe2Mo3 competition crystalline phase leading to the degradation of the GFA. Furthermore, the substitution of proper content of Mo for Fe can obviously enhance the mechanical properties of the present Fe-based alloys, which can be identified that the current FeMoPC bulk metallic glass possesses a high fracture strength (over 3000 MPa) as well as a large room temperature plasticity (above 5%). In addition, the Mo doping FePC bulk metallic glasses exhibit good soft magnetic properties with a relatively high saturation magnetization of over 1.0 T at room temperature. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.