The effect of minor alloying on the glass forming ability and crystallization reaction of Ti32.8Zr30.2Cu9M5.3Be22.7 (M=Fe, Co, and Ni) bulk metallic glass

Glass forming ability (GFA) is critically important for large-scale processing and application of bulk metallic glasses (BMGs). It is now widely accepted that the compositions of BMGs with excellent GFA can be located in off-eutectic regions, where the melts have high stability and primary crystallization plays an important role. In this study we reported that the thermodynamic properties of Ti32.8Zr30.2Cu9Fe5.3Be22.7, Ti32.8Zr30.2Cu9Co5.3Be22.7 and Ti32.8Zr30.2Cu9Ni5.3Be22.7 BMGs to understand the origin of the GFA in these glass-forming systems. It is present that these off-eutectic TiZr-based alloys have high thermomechanical stability and the GFA can be improved by manipulating the primary crystallization through minor alloying. The icosahedron-like short-range ordered arrangement improves the stability of the supercooled liquid, and the (Ti, Zr)2M phase with complex structure formed by minor alloying slows down the nucleation and growth of crystal phase, synergistically contributing to better GFA.