Energetic analysis for optimum amorphous compositions in binary systems

Quantifying glass forming ability of metallic glasses concerns the thermodynamic, the kinetic and the structural aspects. From the thermodynamic point of view, under the consideration of the driving forces for the formation of crystalline phases from supercooled liquids, the formation of crystalline phases can be regarded as the opposite of the retention of the amorphous structure on cooling, and the optimum glass forming compositions can be related to the local minima of the driving force-composition curves. Based on the optimized thermodynamic parameters from literature, the calculated results in the Cu–Hf, the Cu–Zr, the Ni–Zr, the Nb–Ni, the Ti–Ni and the Pd–Si binary systems are compared with experimental measurements, with special attentions to the off-eutectic glass forming compositions, the composition dependent amorphous stabilities and the systems with wide optimum glass forming ranges.