Fragile-to-strong transition in metallic glass-forming liquids

Two of the Earth's most abundant substances, water and silica, exhibit some of the most unusual properties in nature. Among these is an anomalous scaling of liquid dynamics, which appear non-Arrhenius (or "fragile") at high temperatures yet Arrhenius (or "strong") at low temperatures. Here we show that this fragile-to-strong (F-S) transition is not limited to a few liquids such as water and silica, but is possibly a general behavior of metallic glass-forming liquids. We also propose a general model for the viscosity of F-S liquids that captures the scaling of dynamics across both the fragile and strong regimes. (c) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3457670]