1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a Fe based glassy alloy having a larger thickness as compared to prior art amorphous alloy ribbons, and exhibiting excellent magnetic characteristics and high resistivity.
2. Description of the Related Art
It has been known that some multi-element amorphous alloys have wide supercooling temperature ranges before crystallization and form glassy alloys. Also, it has been known that such glassy alloys can be formed as bulk alloys having significantly larger thicknesses than amorphous alloy ribbons formed by prior art liquid quenching processes.
Examples of prior art glassy alloys include Ln-Al-TM alloys, Mg-Ln-Tm alloys, Zr-Al-TM alloys, Hf-Al-TM alloys and Ti-Zr-Be-TM alloys, wherein Ln indicates a rare earth element and TM indicates a transition metal element. However, these glassy alloys do not exhibit magnetic characteristics at room temperature, and thus, they cannot be used as magnetic materials in industrial fields. Accordingly, research and development on thin bulk glassy alloys exhibiting magnetic characteristics at room temperature have been carried out.
In glassy alloys of various compositions capable of a supercooled liquid state, the temperature difference between the crystallization temperature (T.sub.x) and the glass transition temperature (T.sub.g), i.e., (T.sub.x -T.sub.g) is generally too low to form a practically useful glassy alloy. Thus, an alloy having a wide supercooled temperature range and a capability of forming a glassy alloy by supercooling has attracted attention in metallurgic fields, because such an alloy can overcome the thickness restrictions of known amorphous alloys. Accordingly, development of a glassy alloy exhibiting ferromagnetic characteristics at room temperature has been eagerly awaited.