Geometrical aspects of the glass-forming ability of dense binary hard-sphere mixtures

Non-crystalline dense binary hard-sphere mixtures are generated where the size ratio of the spheres and the fraction of small spheres are varied from 1.0 to 2.0 in steps of 0.1 and from 0 to 100% in steps of 10%, respectively. A confined region within this parameter space is defined where non-crystalline structures are stabilized. Comparison of the present results with experimental data for binary bulk metallic glasses supports the validity of geometrical arguments regarding glass-forming ability of binary metallic melts.