ABSTRACT
The relaxation process in amorphous alloys has many common features with the extensively investigated process of relaxation in amorphous polymers and oxides but in a number of amorphous alloys it has a considerably stronger effect and influences a larger number of physical and structural parameters. Homogeneous relaxation, also referred to as structural relaxation (SR) takes place uniformly throughout the entire volume of the specimen without influencing its amorphous state. The SR process is accompanied by changes of the short-range order resulting in a small decrease of the degree of non-equilibrium of the glass. It is important to note that the displacement of the atoms during structural relaxation is smaller than the atomic distances and takes place only in localised areas. Structural relaxation is also accompanied by changes of many physical properties of the amorphous alloys: specific heat, density, electrical resistivity, internal friction, elastic constants, hardness, magnetic characteristics (the Curie temperature changes, magnetic anisotropy is induced), corrosion resistance, and so on.
