Understanding of glass-forming ability of Zr–Cu alloys from the perspective of vibrational entropy of crystalline phases.

Glass formation is of fundamental importance for understanding the origin of glass transition and the design of new bulk metallic glasses. However, its nature has been extremely elusive and intangible over the past few decades. By combining experimental techniques and molecular dynamics simulations, we explored the mystery of glass-forming ability from the perspective of vibrational entropy in the prototypic Zr–Cu alloys. Our results suggest that the excess vibrational entropy of crystalline states and the low-frequency vibration modes can disclose the underlying physics behind good glass formers. The former works as an excellent indicator of glass formability to guide the more efficient composition design of novel glasses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]