Abstract: Long-term thermal stability of a series of Zr-based metallic glasses with different oxygen contents below their glass transition temperatures was compared based on their deductive continuous-heating-transformation diagrams created by using the corollary of Kissinger analysis method. It is found that the influence of oxygen on the long-term thermal stability of Zr-based metallic glasses exhibits at lower temperature is different from that on their short-term thermal stability presented at higher temperature. For each kind of the Zr-based metallic glasses, there is a critical heating rate, f _c, which corresponds to a critical temperature, T_c. As heating rate is smaller than f _c and onset devitrification temperature is below T_c, the glass with higher oxygen content will have longer incubation period for onset devitrification. The values of f _c and T_c are related with the glasses’ reduced glass transition temperature T_rg. The improving effect of oxygen impurity on the long-term thermal stability of Zr-based metallic glasses was discovered.

Key words: Zr-based metallic glasses; thermal stability; continuous heating transformation diagram; oxygen impurity