Soft bulk metallic glasses based on cerium

CeAlNiCu alloys can be readily cast into glassy rods with up to 5 mm in diameter. The Ce-based bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) exhibit a wide supercooled region up to 78 K, very low glass transition temperature (T-g=359 K), melting temperature (T-m=637 K), and Debye temperature (theta(D)=144 K). Ultrasonic measurements demonstrate that these Ce-based BMGs are very soft, having the lowest elastic moduli in known BMGs. These features suggest that the soft BMGs are an ideal model system for investigating physical problems in glass transition, supercooled liquid and melt states, and have potential applications as a functional material as well. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.