Specific heat of Zr65Al7.5Cu17.5Ni10 around the glass transition

Dynamic calorimetric measurements are performed for the quaternary metallic glass Zr65Al7.5Cu17.5Ni10 in order to analyse the dependence on different heating rates for the glass transition temperature T-g. We compare two different temperature programs used for sample relaxation, to estimate the influence of the thermal history on T-g. A lower limit for the glass transition temperature T-g was calculated according to two different models based on the fact, that width and temperature of the glass transition depend on the experimental time scale set by the heating rate: One model assumes a Vogel-Fulcher-Tammann type behaviour, as used to describe more or less "fragile" glass formers and the other assumes an Arrhenius-like behaviour, which is related to "strong" glass formers. The values obtained from both models differ by about 80K. From additional absolute specific heat capacity measurements we calculate the Kauzmann temperature T-K, as a lower limit for the temperature of the glass transition from thermodynamic aspects. Comparing T-K With the temperature values obtained from the two evaluation models we can classify the quaternary metallic glass Zr65Al7.5Cu17.Ni-5(10) to behave more like a "strong" glass former.