Electronegativity difference as a factor for evaluating the thermal stability of Al-rich metallic glasses

This article proposes a factor, the critical electronegativity difference xcri, to correlate alloy composition with thermal stability and glass-forming ability of Al-Ni-RE (RE: Rare Earth element) ternary metallic glasses. The Al-rich metallic glasses with x xcri exhibit glassy behavior, whereas alloys with x xcri are nanocrystalline. Nanoglassy alloys occur when x xcri. The best glass formers are located near xcri. Furthermore, an equation has been deduced to calculate xcri with varying RE covalent atomic radius.