Preparation of Fe–Zr–B amorphous alloys by chemical reduction

Abstract Amorphous Fe–Zr–B alloys are of interest because of the intriguing magnetic properties they display, from paramagnetism to ferromagnetism to re-entrant spin glass phases, with, in some cases, all three states in one sample. The standard method of preparing such alloys is melt quenching. Presented in this paper is the first data on amorphous Fe–Zr–B alloys prepared by a chemical route: the reduction of an aqueous solution of iron sulphate and zirconium sulphate with an aqueous solution of sodium borohydride. Full characterisation data obtained by X-ray diffraction, Mossbauer spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, FT–IR spectroscopy, EDAX and scanning electron microscopy, electron microprobe analysis and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy are presented, and the amorphicity of the product is verified.