Electrical Resistivity Change Upon Crystallization as a Robust Descriptor for Metallic Glass Forming Ability

Rapid identification of compositions with high glass forming ability (GFA) remains a major bottleneck in the discovery of new metallic glasses. Here we show that the electrical resistivity change induced by thermal annealing, a rapidly measurable parameter, serves as a robust descriptor of crystallization resistance for identifying high-GFA compositions within given alloy systems. Combinatorial thin film libraries comprising ∼3500 distinct alloy compositions across multiple metallic glass-forming systems reveal well-defined compositional landscapes, in which regions of minimal resistivity change coincide with alloys exhibiting high GFA. This trend persists in melt-spun ribbons and correlates directly with the crystallization kinetic parameters: alloys with smaller resistivity change exhibit lower Avrami exponents and higher activation energies of crystallization. As resistivity measurements require only seconds per composition point, more than two orders of magnitude faster than diffraction or calorimetry-based characterization, the descriptor provides an efficient route for mapping microstructural stability across complex compositional spaces and enables rapid exploration of new bulk metallic glasses.