EXAFS studies of amorphous Fe₅₀Ta₅₀ powders during mechanical alloying

The progress of the preparation of amorphous Fe50Ta50 alloy powders, starting from elemental Fe and Ta crystalline powder mixtures, by mechanical alloying using a SPEX high energy ball mill was investigated. The as-milled Fe50Ta50 powders were examined as a function of milling time by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), microhardness, X-ray diffraction, differential thermal analysis (DTA), and extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS). The radial distribution functions (RDFs) obtained from Fourier transformation of EXAFS spectra reveal that there are differences in local atomic structure after prolong milling. When combined with information from other techniques, the results allow the amorphization process for Fe50Ta50 during the mechanical alloying (MA) to be better understood.