Amorphous–crystalline Ti2NiCu alloy rapidly quenched ribbons annealed by DSC and electric pulses

•Samples of Ti2NiCu alloy were annealed by electric pulse and annealing in DSC.•The spherulites nucleation and growth was observed in samples annealed in DSC.•10nm grains was found in the samples after electric current annealed.•New crystalline grains nucleate during pulses of electric current without growth. Samples of Ti2NiCu rapidly-quenched alloy with different fractions of crystalline phase were prepared from as-spun amorphous ribbons by two different techniques: applying electric pulse and annealing in differential scanning calorimeter (DSC). The structure and thermomechanical properties of these samples were studied. Spherulites were found in a structure of the samples prepared by DSC. And the mixture of amorphous and nanocrystalline structures with mean grain size less than 10nm was observed by TEM for samples annealed by electric current. The two-way shape memory was induced in the fractionally crystallized samples by single deformation at cooling below the martensite transformation temperature.