Electronic structure models for the effect of Al addition on the glass forming ability of Zr-base amorphous alloys

By using the discrete variational method and constructing cluster model, the effect of Al addition on the stability of clusters in Zr-Ni and Zr-Cu amorphous alloys was investigated. It is found that the affinity between atoms in the clusters is promoted by introducing the Al atom and the magnitude of atomic affinity is ascendant with increasing number of Al atom in the clusters, which induces to generation of new clusters and destruction of local amorphous structure. The stability of the Zr-Al-Ni amorphous alloys with varying Al concentrations can be reflected by the value of the density of states at the Fermi level.