Properties inheritance in metallic glasses

It is widely accepted that the structural features of a metallic glass inherits from its liquid state. The survey of the elastic, plastic, mechanical and physical properties, and glass transition of various metallic glasses indicates that metallic glasses can inherit their properties from their solvent components (or base components). It is found that the elastic properties are mainly determined by the weakest solvent-solvent bonds in metallic glasses, and the plastic events and glass transition prefer to be initiated in the regions with high density of weak solvent-solvent bonds and propagate toward the regions with less density of solvent-solvent bonds in metallic glasses. Some physical properties of the metallic glasses are found to be determined by the electronic structure of the solvent components. The properties inheritance allows new understanding of the glassy structure as well as the properties and structure relationship in metallic glasses, and also indicates the hierarchical atomic bands and inhomogeneous microstructure in metallic glasses which is helpful for understanding the mechanisms of plastic and elastic deformations and glass transition in metallic glasses. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4730441]