The crystallization of amorphous Fe₂MnGe powder prepared by ball milling

We synthesized for the first time the intermetallic compound Fe₂MnGe. To avoid preferential evaporation of volatile components we exploited mechanical alloying. Amorphous Fe₂MnGe alloy powder was prepared by planetary ball milling elemental starting materials. The amorphous-to-crystalline transition was studied by means of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). A cubic D0₃ phase is formed at low temperature and transforms to a high-temperature hexagonal D0₁₉ phase. The apparent activation energy was determined by means of the Kissinger method.