Composition susceptibility and the role of one, two, and three-body interactions in glass forming alloys: Cu50Zr50 vs Ni50Al50

CG Tang and P Harrowell, JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL PHYSICS, 148, 224502 (2018).

DOI: 10.1063/1.5025203

In this paper, we compare the composition fluctuations and interaction potentials of a good metallic glass former, Cu50Zr50, and a poor glass former, Ni50Al50. The Bhatia-Thornton correlation functions are calculated. Motivated by the observation of chemical ordering at the NiAl surface, we derive a new property, <(R)overcap>(cn)(q), corresponding to the linear susceptibility of concentration to a perturbation in density. We present a direct comparison of the potentials for the two model alloys using a 2nd order density expansion, and establish that the one-body energy plays a crucial role in stabilizing the crystal relative to the liquid in both alloys but that the three-body contribution to the heat of fusion is significantly larger in NiAl than CuZr. Published by AIP Publishing.

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