Universal short-range order and material dependent glass-forming ability of metallic liquids and glasses

Abstract

Although the crystal structures of pure metals are material dependent, we theoretically find that entropy-driven docosahedral local structures are the most frequent in their melts and glasses, independent of their crystal structures. In terms of the docosahedral short-range order, we explain why body-centered-cubic metals have higher glass-forming ability than face-centered-cubic ones.