INFLUENCE OF FAST NEUTRON IRRADIATION ON THE DISORDER IN SOME METALLIC GLASSES

A. Nordström, U. Dahlborg, Ö. Rapp

Department of Physics, Royal Institute of Technology, S-100 44 Stokholm, Sweden


Different properties, such as the superconducting critical tamperature Tc, is sensitive to the actual disorder in a metallic glass. In order to study this phenomenon a number of materials were irradiated in a radiation field of fast neutrons of low intensity. In this way possible thermal relaxation effects were avoided. The increased disorder was verified by changes in other macroscopic properties, like the resistivity. It turned out that the effect of the irradiation varied with the glass composition but when the Tc depression is plotted versus the resistivity change, all data fall on the same curve. This result is fairly well described by the theory of Fukuyama, Ebisawa and Maekawa.