Calorimetric study of non-isothermal crystallization kinetics of

Non-isothermal crystallization kinetics of Au50Cu25.5Ag7.5Si17 Bulk Metallic Glass (BMG) has been investigated by Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC). The results show that crystallization in this bulk metallic glass has one stage crystalline precipitation process during continuous heating. The glass transition and crystallization kinetics have relations to the continuous heating rate. Under non-isothermal conditions, activation energies corresponding to the characteristic temperatures were estimated by Kissinger and Ozawa equation. The calculated activation energies of Eg, Ep and Ex revealed that the energy barrier for the glass transformation is higher than that for crystallization. The activation energy calculated from the crystallization peak temperature Ep represents the energy barrier for growth and the activation energy Ex for onset crystallization shows the energy barrier for nucleation.