Softening of phonon spectra in metallic glasses

Abstract

The vibrational spectra of a series of MgZnCa amorphous alloys were computed using density functional theory and implementing the small displacement method. The atomic structures of the alloys were obtained by ab initio molecular dynamics simulations. The vibrational thermodynamic properties were calculated as a function of temperature and, in particular, the specific heat at low temperature was approximated by temperature cubed based on the Debye model. We computed the contribution of Mg vibrations to the specific heat and investigated the softening of Mg phonon spectra, where the maximum allowed vibrational frequency is lowered and highly collective diffusion processes are promoted. The statistical correlation between the reported critical casting thickness of the alloys and softening of Mg phonons was obtained. Similar calculations were performed for two distinctively different amorphous ZrTiCuAl alloys with large and small reported critical casting thickness, respectively. The findings were consistent with those of the MgZnCa alloys.