In order to bypass the limitation of bulk metallic glasses fabrication, we synthesized thin film metallic glasses to study the corrosion characteristics of a wide atomic% composition range, Mg(35.9–63%)Ca(4.1–21%)Zn(17.9–58.3%), in simulated body fluid. We highlight a clear relationship between Zn content and corrosion current such that Zn-medium metallic glasses exhibit minimum corrosion. In addition, we found higher Zn content leads to a poor in vitro cell viability. These results showcase the benefit of evaluating a larger alloy compositional space to probe the limits of corrosion resistance and prescreen for biocompatible applications.
