Efficient local packing in metallic glasses

A simple topological model in an earlier manuscript has provided additional support for the concept that efficient atomic packing is a fundamental principle in the formation of metallic glasses. In that work, an approach for defining and quantifying the local packing efficiency, P, was developed for solute-centered clusters that contained only solvent atoms in the first coordination shell. In the present work, this methodology is extended to allow quantification of P when more than one atomic species is present in the first coordination shell. This analysis is applied to several metallic glasses using published experimental data of partial coordination numbers. It is shown that packing in the first coordination shell is generally very efficient, even though the systems studied have significant differences in atomic species, compositions and relative atomic sizes. It is shown that packing is generally efficient around both solute and solvent atom species. Local packing efficiencies much less than unity are expected to be uncommon, since the global average packing efficiency is near unity and local packing efficiencies greater than unity are physically improbable. Deviations from efficiently packed configurations are discussed with respect to the local packing efficiencies in competing crystalline structures and with poorer glass forming ability. The values of P obtained for metallic glasses are essentially identical to the values obtained from a similar analysis of the competing crystalline structures. These results are consistent with frequent earlier reports of topological short range ordering in metallic glasses and with developments that have established the relationship between dense atomic packing and glass formation.