The magnetic structure of commercial metallic glasses

¹ Institut Laue-Langevin - BP 156, 38042 Grenoble Cédex 9, France
² Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Sheffield - Sheffield S3 7RH, UK
³ London Centre for Nanotechnology and Department of Physics and Astronomy University College London - London WC1E 6BT, UK
⁴ Department of Physics, King Abdulaziz University - Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia

Received: 12 February 2004
Accepted: 20 September 2004

Abstract

X-ray and polarized neutron scattering techniques have been used to examine the magnetic structure of wide-ribbon commercial metallic glass (METGLAS 2605-S2). Samples with well-defined geometry have been made for the experiments at 300 and in 1.1 and have been measured in the As-received, Field Annealed and Stress Relieved states. The data show that all three samples are spatially correlated non-collinear ferromagnets. A new method of analysis has been applied to show that the non-collinear components of the moments are correlated over several neighbour spacings, of the range of the atomic correlations, and that, while annealing treatments do not have a profound effect on the correlations, the non-collinear components are larger in the annealed samples.