Experimental investigation of the electronic structure of amorphous and crystalline FexB100-x(75⩽x⩽87)

The authors have measured polycrystalline Fe, polycrystalline B and a series of Fe-B metallic glasses in the amorphous and crystalline states by means of high-resolution UV photoemission. Auger electron and energy-loss spectroscopy. The density of states of the amorphous metallic glasses is characterised by a maximum immediately at the Fermi level which may be assigned to the Fe 3d electrons. No definite changes in the electronic structure were observed in the case of single-phase crystallisation (Fe75B25). For the other samples they have found effects due to the precipitation of alpha -Fe. A comparison with photoemission results in the literature showed discrepancies which they explain mainly by chemical differences in the sample surfaces.