Molecular dynamics simulation studies of structural and dynamical properties of rapidly quenched Al

The structural and dynamical properties of rapidly quenched Al are studied by molecular dynamics simulations. The pair-correlation function of high temperature liquid Al agrees well with the experimental results. Different cooling rates are applied with high cooling rates leading to glass formation, while low cooling rates leading to crystallization. The local structures are characterized by Honeycutt–Andersen indices and Voronoi tessellation analysis. The results show that for high cooling rates, the local structures of the liquid and glassy Al are predominated by icosahedral clusters, together with considerable amount of face-centered cubic and hexagonal close packed short-range orders. These short-range order results are further confirmed using the recently developed atomic cluster alignment method. Moreover, the atomic cluster alignment clearly shows the crystal nucleation process in supercooled liquid of Al. Finally, the mean square displacement for the liquid is also analyzed, and the corresponding diffusion coefficient as a function of temperature is calculated.