The intrinsic heterogeneities of the metallic glasses can be activated through cryogenic thermal cycling, making irreversible structural changes after the treatment and inducing rejuvenation to the materials. Although the energy rise after cryogenic thermal cycling can be easily determined from calorimetry, the energy change made by the heterogeneities is unknown because of the difficulty in witnessing these heterogeneities. In this paper, we investigated the changes of a typical heterogeneity: the Fe3Si crystallite, embedded in two partially-crystallized Fe-based metallic glasses, and subsequently deduced its influence on the neighbouring glassy matrix. It was found that even in the initial, partially-crystallized alloys, the Fe3Si nanocrystals were under residual expansion. Furthermore, both expansion and contraction can be detected after cryogenic thermal cycling depending on the applied number of cycles. The maximum residual volumetric strain preserved after CTC is in the order of 0.1%. Moreover, the stored energy of both crystals and glasses are calculated and the total energy rise is determined at the order of 5–50 mJ/g. The study of partially-crystallized alloys not only provides a useful model of heterogeneous materials but also reflects the structural change of the glassy phases, making this method attractive in understanding the effects of thermo-mechanical processing on heterogeneities.
