Bulk metallic glasses in the Zr-Al-Ni-Cu system Original Research Article

Electron concentration and atomic size rules are important criteria for bulk metallic glass formation. According to these rules, a series of new Zr-Al-Ni-Cu amorphous alloys with a constant e/a ratio of 1.4 and an average atomic size of 0.1496 nm was designed. All the alloys have high glass forming abilities, large supercooled liquid regions ΔTx, and large reduced glass transition temperatures Trg. The best glass forming composition is located near Zr63.8Al11.4Ni17.2Cu7.6. Its glass forming ability is higher than that of the Inoue alloy Zr65Al7.5Ni10Cu17.5.