Local environments of atomic clusters and the effect on dynamics in CuZr metallic glass-forming liquids

FX Li and MZ Li, JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS, 122, 225103 (2017).

DOI: 10.1063/1.5004262

The effect of local environments of various atomic clusters on the dynamics in CuZr metallic glass-forming liquids was investigated via classical molecular dynamics simulations. It is found that atomic clusters exhibit different local connectivity, leading to different local environments, even for the same type of clusters. Moreover, local environments of atomic clusters are found to have a different impact on dynamics in supercooled liquids. For pentagon-rich clusters such as < 0,0,12,0 > and < 0,1,10,2 >, the dynamics becomes slower with increasing connectivity in both alpha and beta relaxation time scales. In contrast, as local connectivity increases, atomic mobility of connected < 0,3,6,4 > clusters is enhanced. The evolution of atomic symmetries in clusters with local connectivity is found to be the underlying structural basis for the correlation between local environments and dynamics of atomic clusters. These findings indicate that local environments of atomic clusters are more critical in the relaxation dynamics and the dynamical heterogeneity in metallic glass-forming liquids. Published by AIP Publishing.

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