XAFS technique has been used to quantitatively determine the local structure evolutions of ultrafine Ni\|P and Ni\|Ce\|P amorphous alloys prepared by chemical reduction during the annealing process.Using an asymmetric atom distribution function model of convolution of a Gaussian function P \-G and an exponential function P \-E for XAFS data analysis,we obtained that the average bond length R j,coordination N ,thermal disorder factor σ T,and static disorder factor σ S for the Ni\|Ni first neighbor shell are 0.271?nm,10.0,0.0060?nm and 0.028?nm in the Ni\|P and 0.271nm,10.6,0.0070?nm and 0.030?nm in the Ni\|Ce\|P initial samples,respectively.It indicates that the σ S is rather large and about three times larger than that of σ T.The Ni\|P sample crystallized under the annealing temperature of 573?K,while the crystallizing temperature of Ni\|Ce\|P sample is about 100?K higher.The result suggests that the thermal stability of Ni\|Ce\|P sample is significantly increased by the addition of 2% Ce element.After being annealed at 773?K,both Ni\|P and Ni\|Ce\|P samples are fully crystallized as metallic Ni and an amount of crystalline Ni\-3P.Furthermore,we have found that the static disorder σ s of Ni\|Ni coordination shell is 0.011?nm for the Ni\|P and still larger for the Ni\|Ce\|P samples annealed at 773?K,despite their radial distribution functions around Ni atoms are similar to that of Ni foil.It implies that the Ni lattice obtained from the crystallized Ni\|P and Ni\|Ce\|P amorphous alloys is significantly distorted by the interaction of P element.