Six sets of Ni-Nb-Zr multilayered films were designed and prepared with the overall compositions of Ni63Nb28Zr9, Ni48Nb13Zr39, Ni29Nb60Zr11, Ni79Nb12Zr9, Ni31Nb31Zr38, and Ni31Nb11Zr58, and art ion beam mixing experiment was then conducted using 180 keV xenon ions. It is found that the Ni-Nb-Zr system is a readily glass-forming system, and both fully amorphous alloys and amorphous-crystalline composites could be synthesized. A detailed discussion was presented for the formation mechanism of the amorphous alloys and amorphous-crystalline composites. In addition, thermodynamic calculation predicted the glass-forming ability of the system, which is in good agreement with the IBM results. The experimental results and thermodynamic calculation obtained in present study are also supported e.g. by the observations of rapid solidification. (c) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.