Glass formation adjacent to the intermetallic compounds in Cu-Zr binary system

On the contrary to the common belief that glass formation is unfeasible near terminal intermetallic compound due to fast crystallization kinetics, here we present our findings that bulk metallic glasses are readily formed near intermetallic compounds, far away from the traditional region of glass forming near eutectics. While the intermetallic compounds themselves are not possible glass formers, bulk metallic glasses can be quenched compositionally neighboring the intermetallic compounds as close as 0.5 at.%. Taking binary Cu-Zr as a model system, the phenomenon of two optimum glass forming compositions sandwiching the corresponding intermetallic compounds (Cu51Zr14, Cu10Zr7, CuZr, CuZr2 and Cu8Zr3) is observed consistently. This new scenario of “intermetallic glass” is verified by the thermodynamic principle that the alloy liquids neighboring the intermetallic compounds possess lower Gibbs free energy than that of the compounds themselves. Furthermore, the sluggish crystallization behavior of these liquids provides an additional kinetic explanation.