A predictive structural model for bulk metallic glasses.

ABSTRACT: Great progress has been made in understanding the atomic structure of metallic glasses, but there is still no clear connection between atomic structure and glass-forming ability. Here we give new insights into perhaps the most important question in the field of amorphous metals: how can glass-forming ability be predicted from atomic structure? We give a new approach to modelling metallic glass atomic structures by solving three long-standing problems: we discover a new family of structural defects that discourage glass formation; we impose efficient local packing around all atoms simultaneously; and we enforce structural self-consistency. Fewer than a dozen binary structures satisfy these constraints, but extra degrees of freedom in structures with three or more different atom sizes signif

SUBMITTER: Laws KJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4648055 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature