Low-temperature irreversible structural relaxation of amorphous metallic alloys

Abstract New phenomena, irreversible changes of the main physical properties due to the transition of amorphous metallic alloys into novel metastable state after low-temperature treatment has been observed for the first time. Two-step model is proposed including breaking of the atomic bonds in associates by thermo-elastic stresses as the first step and low-temperature structural relaxation caused by elastic stress waves as the second step.