E. Babić1, R. Ristić2, I. A. Figueroa3, D. Pajić1, Ž. Skoko1, K. Zadro1
1 Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, HR 10000, Croatia
2 Department of Physics, University of Osijek, Osijek, HR 31000, Croatia
3 Institute of Materials Research-UNAM, Universitaria Coyoacan, C. P. 04510 Mexico, Mexico
Rapidly cooled atomic and molecular liquids can bypass crystallization and vitrify. While network bonding in silica and chain entanglement in polymers seem plausible mechanisms for inhibiting their crystallization, the corresponding mechanism for metallic systems is less clear. When molten alloy is cooled, the formation of metallic glass (MG) usually competes with that of intermetallic compounds (IC) : thus similar free energies (G) of MG and competing IC(s) facilitate vitrification. At low temperatures G is dominated with internal energy which in metallic systems strongly depends on electronic structure (ES). Thus small differences in ES between MG and competing IC(s) promote vitrification, as observed in several binary and ternary transition metal (TM) alloy systems.
This correlation seems applicable to all TM alloys irrespective on their number of alloying components ( thus also to high-entropy alloys) and provides a simple way to select compositions with high glass forming ability.
This work was supported by UNAM-DGAPA-PAPIIT project No.IN101016 and Osijek University project IZIP2016-3