Pressure-assisted combustion synthesis large-scale nanostructured Fe ₇₄Si₂₄B₂ alloy

It is very important to find some processing methods to prepare large-scale nanostructured materials for practical applications. The nanostructured Fe ₇₄Si₂₄B₂ alloy with dimension of 5 mm×Φ50 mm was fabricated by a pressure-assisted combustion synthesis technique that is convenient, inexpensive and capable of being scaled up for tailoring the large-scale nanostructured materials. The Fe₇₄Si ₂₄B₂ alloy was investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). The Fe₇₄Si₂₄B₂ alloy was composed of eutectic (Fe₂B and Fe₃Si) and matrix (Fe₃Si). The average grain size of the matrix is about 10 nm. The nano-scale matrix originates from the high nucleation rate and slow growth of the crystalline nuclei in the super-cooling melt at applied pressure.