A sulfurous, metallic glass forming alloy and a method for the production thereof are described.

The invention belongs to the field of additive manufacturing of amorphous alloy, and discloses a laser 3D printing forming system of amorphous alloy foil and a forming method thereof. The unnecessary material of the amorphous alloy foil is cut by a first laser and then the remaining portion is selectively scanned and heated by a second laser so that the amorphous alloy is heated to be in a superplastic state in the supercooled liquid region. Then, the amorphous alloy foil is rolled by a preheated roller in combination with the ultrasonic vibration to achieve interatomic bonding between layers of the amorphous alloy foil, and the amorphous alloy foil is then rapidly cooled, so that an amorphous alloy part with a large size, a complicated shape and a porous structure is formed. The invention has overcome the limitation of the size and shape of the amorphous alloy prepared by the traditional amorphous alloy preparation methods, and uses amorphous alloy foil as a raw material, which has lower cost than the traditional 3D printing amorphous powder. In addition, a roller is used to roll the ultra-thin amorphous alloy foil such that the prepared amorphous alloy part has a more compact internal structure.

An alloy may include at least one first element, the first element being selected from: nickel (Ni), zirconium (Zr), cerium (Ce), molybdenum (Mo), aluminum (Al), tantalum (Ta), cobalt (Co), yttrium (Y), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), and manganese (Mn); no more than three second elements, the second elements being selected from: phosphorous (P), carbon (C), boron (B), and silicon (Si); and the balance iron (Fe). Typically, a majority of a crystal structure of the alloy may be amorphous. In some instances, between 1 volume percent (vol. %) and 50 vol. % of the crystal structure may be a crystalline metal phase. The crystalline metal phase includes at least one of: copper (Cu), aluminum (Al), vanadium (V), chromium (Cr), iron (Fe), cobalt (Co), nickel (Ni), and molybdenum (Mo).

Systems and methods in accordance with embodiments of the invention fabricate objects including amorphous metals using techniques akin to additive manufacturing. In one embodiment, a method of fabricating an object that includes an amorphous metal includes: applying a first layer of molten metallic alloy to a surface; cooling the first layer of molten metallic alloy such that it solidifies and thereby forms a first layer including amorphous metal; subsequently applying at least one layer of molten metallic alloy onto a layer including amorphous metal; cooling each subsequently applied layer of molten metallic alloy such that it solidifies and thereby forms a layer including amorphous metal prior to the application of any adjacent layer of molten metallic alloy; where the aggregate of the solidified layers including amorphous metal forms a desired shape in the object to be fabricated; and removing at least the first layer including amorphous metal from the surface.

Nanostructured materials that contain amorphous intergranular films (AIFs) are described herein. Amorphous intergranular films are structurally disordered (lacking the ordered pattern of a crystal) films that are up to a few nanometers thick. Nanostructured materials containing these films exhibit increased ductility, strength, and thermal stability simultaneously. A nanocrystalline material system that has two or more elements can be designed to contain AIFs at the grain boundaries, provided that the dopants segregate to the interface and certain materials science design rules are followed. An example of AIFs in a nanostructured CuZr alloy is provided to illustrate the benefits of integrating AIFs into nanostructured materials.

Embodiments disclosed herein relate to the production of amorphous metals having compositions of iron, chromium, molybdenum, carbon and boron for usage in additive manufacturing, such as in layer-by-layer deposition to produce multi-functional parts. Such parts demonstrate ultra-high strength without sacrificing toughness and also maintain the amorphous structure of the materials during and after manufacturing processes. Two additive manufacturing techniques are provided: (1) the complete melting of amorphous powder and re-solidifying to amorphous structure to eliminate the formation of crystalline structure therein by controlling a heating source power and cooling rate without affecting previous deposited layers; and (2) partial melting of the outer surface of the amorphous powder, and solidifying powder particles with each-other without undergoing a complete melting stage. Amorphous alloy compositions have oxygen impurities in low concentration levels to optimize glass forming ability (GFA). Specific techniques of additive manufacturing include those based on lasers, electron beams and ultrasonic sources.

There are provided metallic glass matrix composites with controllable work-hardening capacity. In more detail, there are provided metallic glass matrix composite with controllable work-hardening capacity capable of having significantly excellent toughness due to a metastable second phase precipitated in-situ in a metallic glass matrix by polymorphic phase transformation during a solidification process without a separate synthetic process, and capable of controlling work-hardening capacity by measuring physical properties of a second phase and adjusting a volume fraction (V.sub.f) of the second phase due to constant correlation between the physical properties (absorbed energy E.sup.t.sub.a, a phase transformation temperature T.sub.Ms, or a hardness H.sub.2nd) of a metastable B2 second phase precipated in the metallic glass matrix and the absorbed energy (E.sup.p.sub.a,V) by work-hardening per unit volume fraction of the second phase in the metallic glass matrix.

BMG parts having an uniform and consistently thick metal oxide layer. The metal oxide layer, also known as an interference layer, exhibits a consistent color and durability over the entire surface of the part. Methods and devices involved in forming the BMG parts with uniformly thick interference layers are also provided.

An enclosure for an implantable cardiac or neurostimulation device includes a bulk metallic glass alloy. In some arrangements, the enclosure is configured to house one or more components of an implantable pacemaker. In some arrangements, the enclosure is configured to house one or more components of an implantable defibrillator.

A sulfurous, metallic glass forming alloy and a method for the production thereof are described.