A universal criterion for metallic glass formation

We have established a generally applicable criterion for the critical cooling rates R-c needed for the formation of metallic glasses, based on thermodynamic and kinetic properties of ten categories of metal-based alloys ranging from binary to multicomponent systems. R-c is found to depend on several fundamental properties of materials including the glass transition temperature (normalized with respect to the liquidus temperature), entropy of fusion, and kinetic fragility. Such a relation reproduces the experimental R-c values of 43 metallic glasses remarkably well with a R-2 value of 0.94. The explanation of R-c provides guidance in search of metallic glasses. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4731881]