Structural investigations of interfaces in Fe90Sc10 nanoglasses using high-energy x-ray diffraction

High-resolution diffraction experiments of Fe90Sc10 nanoglasses and rapidly quenched metallic glasses as reference materials have been performed using high-energy x-rays with a wavelength of 0.21 angstrom from a synchrotron radiation source. Nanoglasses are amorphous alloys with a significant fraction of interfaces on the nanometer scale. The short- and intermediate-range orders of a nanoglass are different from the well known amorphous materials produced by rapid quenching from the melt. These structural modifications have significant influence on the physical properties. In this paper, the short- and intermediate-range orders of the nanoglass Fe90Sc10 and the reference metallic glass Fe90Sc10 alloy prepared by rapid quenching are discussed. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3699228]