Metallic glasses and the avoidance of crystallization in metallic melts

Abstract

The ease with which any metallic material can avoid crystallization on cooling and thus form a glass is discussed in terms of theories of transformation kinetics, homogeneous nucleation and crystal growth. It is shown that a sensible order-of-magnitude estimate of critical cooling rate for glass formation can be obtained largely from a knowledge of the reduced glass transition temperature. The approach shows clearly how glass formation in an alloy system is favoured for compositions near a deep eutectic where the low melting temperature is the dominating influence.