Atomic Bond Deficiency Defects in Amorphous Metals

Atomic bond deficiency (BD) is considered to be characteristic structural defects in amorphous metals. They are the necessary feature of local atomic configurations that facilitate various atomic transports under different driving forces. Compared with vacancies in crystalline solids, they are “small” in terms of their formation energies, volume costs, and elementary steps involved in atomic transport. This article reviews the authors’ recent efforts made to analyze how various local configurations containing BD are related to amorphous metal’s unique characteristics, such as glass transition, diffusion, shear flow, and structural relaxation.