Formation of amorphous alloys by ion mixing and its thermodynamic and atomistic modeling in the binary metal systems

In this paper, a brief summary is firstly addressed the up-to-date progress concerning the formation of amorphous alloys (or metallic glasses) in the binary metal systems by ion beam mixing of multilayers. Secondly, under the framework of Miedema's model, thermodynamic modeling of crystal-to-amorphous transition is developed by taking into account of the significant role of the excess interfacial free energy in metallic glass formation. Thirdly, applying the realistic inter-atomic potentials, molecular dynamics simulations are conducted in some Ni-based systems to determine the critical solid solubility of the constituent metals, at and beyond which the crystalline solid solutions become unstable and decay spontaneously into a disordered state, thus determining the glass-forming composition range of the systems.