title: Signatures of fragile-to-strong transition in a binary metallic glass-forming liquid.
abstract: Classical molecular dynamics investigations of the evolution of the microscopic structure and atomic dynamics are found to provide signatures of fragile-to-strong transition in a Cu-Zr bulk metallic glass forming alloy. Present study reveals that (i) the alloy exhibits a non-monotonic decoupling of the self-diffusion coefficient D and the relaxation time τ as observed in case of supercooled water despite the difference in the intermolecular interactions compared to this system, (ii) the temperature dependence of D and τ suggests a crossover from non-Arrhenius to Arrhenius behavior near mode-coupling transition temperature T(C), and (iii) the alloy exhibits a crossover from Stokes-Einstein ((D ~ (τ/T)(-1)) to fractional Stokes-Einstein (D ∝ (τ/T)(-ζ)) with exponent ζ ≈ 0.6. A weak first-order transition, associated with the fragile-to-strong transition, has also been observed in the undercooled region. These findings are in accordance with the growing idea of fragile-to-strong crossover having larger generality than the traditional classification of the glass-forming liquids as fragile and strong.
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Physics, Faculty of Technology and Engineering, The M. S. University of Baroda, Vadodara, Gujarat 390001, India.
authors.forename: K N
authors.initials: KN
authors.lastname: Lad
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Jakse
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pasturel