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Updated: Jun 16, 2026

Methods of Ex Situ and In Situ Investigations of Structural Transformations: The Case of Crystallization of Metallic Glasses
Published on: June 7, 2018
Entropy Decoding the Fundamental Law of Phase Competition in Glass Formation
Benke Huo1, Zhengqing Cai1, Bingtao Wang1
1Center for Advanced Structural Materials, State Key Laboratory of Metastable Materials Science and Technology, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, P. R. China.
Abstract:
The quest to understand the fundamentals of optimal glass-forming compositions in multi-component alloys has long been challenging. To gain insights into the mechanism, a systematic study of glass compositions is conducted using a new strategy of entropy engineering, imposed by the integration of eutectic or intermetallic phases featured by their low melting entropies, which can be determined experimentally and precisely. The optimal composition designed using entropy engineering is further compared with that derived from the conventional "deep eutectic" principle and empirical trial-and-error. For the ternary Cu-Zr-Ti alloys, a series of compositions are achieved, and the ranking of their glass-forming ability indicates a correlation with the melting entropies of initial phases. In particular, the optimal glass-forming composition of Cu59.99Zr28.75Ti11.26 is designed using two initial phases of intermetallic Cu50Zr50 and eutectic Cu73.5Ti26.5 with the lowest melting entropies. This designed composition is remarkably equivalent to the reported one, Cu60Zr30Ti10. It is more meaningful that this study uncovers the phase competition mechanism involved in glass formation in a quantitative way for the first time, emphasizing the importance of melting entropies in screening and balancing the competing phases upon glass formation.
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