A Combinatorial Approach to the Investigation of Metal Systems that Form Both Bulk Metallic Glasses and High Entropy Alloys

In this work, compositionally graded specimens were deposited using the laser engineered net-shaping (LENS (TM)) additive manufacturing technique to study the glass-forming ability of two bulk metallic glass (BMG) and high entropy alloy (HEA) composite systems. The first graded specimen varied from Zr57Ti5Al10Cu20Ni8 (BMG) to CoCrFeNiCu0.5 (HEA) and the second graded specimen varied from TiZrCuNb (BMG) to (TiZrCuNb)(65)Ni-35 (HEA). After deposition, laser surface melting experiments were performed parallel to the gradient to remelt and rapidly solidify the specimen. Scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy were used to determine the morphology and composition variations in the as-deposited and laser surface melted phases. Selected area diffraction of the melt pool regions confirmed an almost fully amorphous region in the first gradient and an amorphous matrix/crystalline dendrite composite structure in the second gradient.