New criterion in predicting glass forming ability of various glass-forming systems

It has been confirmed that glass-forming ability (GFA) of supercooled liquids is related to not only liquid phase stability but also the crystallization resistance. In this paper, it is found that the liquid region interval (T l-T g ) characterized by the normalized parameter of T g /T l could reflect the stability of glass-forming liquids at the equilibrium state, whilst the normalization of supercooled liquid region △T x =(T x-T g ), i.e. T x /T x (wherein T l is the liquidus temperature, T g the glass transition temperature, and T x the onset crystallization temperature) could indicate the crystallization resistance during glass formation. Thus, a new parameter, defined as ξ = T g /T l +△ T x /T x is established to predict the GFA of supercooled liquids. In comparison with other commonly used criteria, this parameter demonstrates a better statistical correlation with the GFA for various glass-forming systems including metallic glasses, oxide glasses and cryoprotectants.