2016/01/29 by Eric Perim, Dongwoo Lee, Perim, Eric +19
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Metallic Glasses and Amorphous Alloys #Phase-change materials and chalcogenides #Theoretical and Computational Physics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1601.08233
openalex publication_date 2016/01/29 · openalex created_date 2022/10/03 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Despite two decades of studies, the formation of metallic glasses, very\npromising systems for industrial applications, still remains mostly\nunexplained. This lack of knowledge hinders the search for new systems, still\nperformed with combinatorial trial and error. In the past, it was speculated\nthat some sort of "confusion" during crystallization could play a key role\nduring their formation. In this article, we propose a heuristic descriptor\nquantifying such confusion. It is based on the "thermodynamic density of\ncompeting crystalline states", parameterized from high-throughput ab-initio\ncalculations. The existence of highly enthalpy-degenerate but\ngeometrically-different phases frustrates the crystallization process and\npromotes glass formation. Two test beds are considered. A good and a bad\nglass-former, CuZr and NiZr, are experimentally characterized with\nhigh-throughput synthesis. The experimental results corroborate the capability\nof the heuristic descriptor in predicting glass forming ability through the\ncompositional space. Our analysis is expected to deepen the understanding of\nthe underlying mechanisms and to accelerate the discovery of novel metallic\nglasses.\n