High critical currents obtained by heat treating rapidly quenched Hf-Zr-V metallic glasses

We have found that metallic glasses can be formed in the Hf-V, Zr-V, and Hf-Zr-V systems by rapid quenching. The importance of this finding is threefold: 1) Like many metallic glasses these glasses exhibit excellent mechanical properties. 2) Using well established rapid quenching techniques the material can be economically produced as ribbon, filament, or powder. 3) Because the amorphous material is homogeneous on an atomic scale a variety of microstructures not obtainable by standard metallurgical procedures are possible. These glasses represent a potentially useful starting material for the fabrication of high field, high current superconducting devices. Completely amorphous samples were not found to be superconducting above 2 K. Controlled growth of the C-15 Laves phase compound by heat treating the glasses results in materials having Jc(4.2 K) 10⁵A/cm²at Happlied= 150 kOe.