Surface-Resolved Mapping of Structural Disorder in Colloidal Glass-Forming Analogues.

Area of Science:

• Physical Chemistry
• Materials Science
• Condensed Matter Physics

Background:

• Understanding glass formation is crucial but lacks direct structural predictors for glass-forming ability (GFA).
• Existing models often lack real-space visualization of structural disorder.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel binary colloidal model system for visualizing structural disorder in real-space.
• To identify direct structural indicators that predict GFA in amorphous materials.

Main Methods:

• Utilized bidisperse polystyrene particles mimicking Cu-Zr metallic glass size ratios.
• Employed near-equilibrium assembly conditions.
• Conducted 2D image analyses to quantify structural disorder signatures.

Main Results:

• Identified distinct disorder signatures: enhanced five- and seven-sided coordination, damped spatial correlations, and irregular hexagonal packing.
• Observed convergence of these signatures within 21.54-66.67 atom % Zr analogue range, correlating with known GFA.
• Demonstrated structure-function relationships with enhanced mechanical strength and optical uniformity.

Conclusions:

• The colloidal model provides a chemically tunable platform for studying amorphous stability.
• Identified key structural indicators advance predictive modeling of disorder-property relationships in glass-forming materials.
• Offers an interpretable, data-rich approach to the fundamental challenge of glass formation.