Impact of Spatial Dimension on Structural Ordering in Metallic Glass

Abstract

Metallic glasses have so far attracted considerable attention for their applications as bulk materials. However, new physics and applications often emerge by dimensional reduction from three dimension (3D) to two dimension (2D). Here, we study, by molecular dynamics simulations, how the liquid-to-glass transition of a binary Cu50Zr50 MG is affected by spatial dimensionality. We find clear evidence that crystal-like structural ordering controls both dynamic heterogeneity and slow dynamics, and thus plays a crucial role in the formation of the 2DMG. Although the 2DMG reproduces the dynamical behaviors of its 3D counterpart by considering Mermin-Wagner-type fluctuations specific to 2D, this atomic-scale structural mechanism is essentially different from that for the 3DMG in which icosahedral clusters incompatible with crystallographic symmetry play a key role in glassy behaviors. Our finding provides a new structural mechanism for the formation of 2DMGs, which cannot be inferred from the knowledge of 3DMGs. The results suggest a structural basis for the glass transition in 2DMG and provide possible explanations for some previous experimental observations in ultrathin film MGs.

arXiv comment20 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (11)

• Experimental Observation of the Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect in a Magnetic Topological Insulator
• Phase Diagram and High Temperature Superconductivity at 65 K in Tuning Carrier Concentration of Single-Layer FeSe Films
• Bond orientational ordering in liquids: Towards a unified description of water-like anomalies, liquid-liquid transition, glass transition, and crystallization
• Predicting the long time dynamic heterogeneity in a supercooled liquid on the basis of short time heterogeneities
• Mermin-Wagner fluctuations in 2D amorphous solids
• Fundamental differences between glassy dynamics in two and three dimensions
• Long Wavelength Fluctuations and the Glass Transition in 2D and 3D
• The Geometry of Slow Structural Fluctuations in a Supercooled Binary Alloy
• Theories of Glass Formation and the Glass Transition
• Unveiling Dimensionality Dependence of Glassy Dynamics: 2D Infinite Fluctuation Eclipses Inherent Structural Relaxation
• Assessing the role of static lengthscales behind glassy dynamics in polydisperse hard disks

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Glass Transition in Supercooled Liquids with Medium Range Crystalline Order
• Disorder Perturbation Expansion for Athermal Crystals
• Glassy dynamics and crystalline local order in two-dimensional amorphous silica