Particular transition-metal-rich amorphous alloys consist of distorted bcc nano-clusters. Two kinds of these amorphous alloys are of special interest due to their physical properties: (1) amorphous metallic alloys with no boundaries between grains, named as metallic glasses, and (2) nanoglasses specified through a high proportion of boundaries/interfaces between amorphous grains with sizes of about 3 nm or less (frequently called nanograins). Similar to nanoglasses, nano-sized crystalline grains of bcc-Fe consist mainly of two components: (a) nanometer-sized bcc-Fe grains and (b) interfaces between grains. A fundamental feature of these materials seems to be magnetic properties that are controlled by a quantum mechanical effect, the indistinguishability effect. Based on the experimentally observed magnetic properties of nano-sized bcc-Fe, it is suggested that the application of the indistinguishability effect may open the way for the production and understanding of this class of materials.
Ghafari et al. (Sun,) studied this question.