title: Interfacial free energy controlling glass-forming ability of Cu-Zr alloys.
abstract: Glass is a freezing phase of a deeply supercooled liquid. Despite its simple definition, the origin of glass forming ability (GFA) is still ambiguous, even for binary Cu-Zr alloys. Here, we directly study the stability of the supercooled Cu-Zr liquids where we find that Cu64Zr36 at a supercooled temperature shows deeper undercoolability and longer persistence than other neighbouring compositions with an equivalent driving Gibbs free energy. This observation implies that the GFA of the Cu-Zr alloys is significantly affected by crystal-liquid interfacial free energy. In particular, the crystal-liquid interfacial free energy of Cu64Zr36 in our measurement was higher than that of other neighbouring liquids and, coincidently a molecular dynamics simulation reveals a larger glass-glass interfacial energy value at this composition, which reflects more distinct configuration difference between liquid and crystal phase. The present results demonstrate that the higher crystal-liquid interfacial free energy is a prerequisite of good GFA of the Cu-Zr alloys.
authors.affiliation: 1] Division of Physical Metrology, Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, Daejeon 305-340, Republic of Korea [2].
authors.forename: Dong-Hee
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.affiliation: 1] International Center for New-Structured Materials (ICNSM), and State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, Zhejiang University and Laboratory of New-Structured Materials, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, People's Republic of China [2] Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2V4, Canada [3].
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Division of Physical Metrology, Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, Daejeon 305-340, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Hanbyeol
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yoo
authors.affiliation: Pohang Accelerator Laboratory, Pohang 790-784, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Hyun Hwi
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Division of Physical Metrology, Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, Daejeon 305-340, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Sooheyong
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: 1] Division of Physical Metrology, Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, Daejeon 305-340, Republic of Korea [2] Department of Science of Measurement, University of Science and Technology, Daejeon 305-333, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Geun Woo
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: International Center for New-Structured Materials (ICNSM), and State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, Zhejiang University and Laboratory of New-Structured Materials, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Hongbo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lou
authors.affiliation: International Center for New-Structured Materials (ICNSM), and State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, Zhejiang University and Laboratory of New-Structured Materials, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Xiaodong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: International Center for New-Structured Materials (ICNSM), and State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, Zhejiang University and Laboratory of New-Structured Materials, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Qingping
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instrumentation, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Dongxian
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: International Center for New-Structured Materials (ICNSM), and State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, Zhejiang University and Laboratory of New-Structured Materials, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jianzhong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jiang