Method for producing amorphous metal, method and apparatus for producing amorphous metal fine particles, and amorphous metal fine particles

Abstract

A method and apparatus are invented for producing an amorphous metal, which can readily realize amorphous metal fine particles of sub-micron order to 100 micron order including fine particles of several micrometer of a material from which an amorphous metal cannot be realized by conventional amorphous metal producing method and apparatus, with a high yield and an excellent extraction rate. A molten metal (1) is supplied into a liquid coolant (4), boiling due to spontaneous-bubble nucleation is generated, the molten metal (1) is rapidly cooled while forming fine particles thereof by utilizing a pressure wave generated by this boiling, thereby obtaining an amorphous metal. This production method is realized by apparatus comprising: material supplying means (3); a cooling section (2) which brings in the coolant (4) whose quantity is small and sufficient for cooling and solidifying the supplied molten metal (1), and rapidly cools the molten metal (1) while forming fine particles thereof by utilizing a pressure wave generated by boiling due to spontaneous-bubble nucleation, thereby obtaining amorphous fine particles; and recovery means (5) for recovering amorphous metal fine particles from the coolant (4).

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.