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Polyamorphism in a metallic glass

Nature Materials volume 6, pages 192–197 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

A metal, or an alloy, can often exist in more than one crystal structure. The face-centred-cubic and body-centred-cubic forms of iron (or steel) are a familiar example of such polymorphism. When metallic materials are made in the amorphous form, is a parallel ‘polyamorphism’ possible? So far, polyamorphic phase transitions1,2,3,4,5,6,7 in the glassy state have been observed only in glasses involving directional and open (such as tetrahedral4,5) coordination environments. Here, we report an in situX-ray diffraction observation of a pressure-induced transition between two distinct amorphous polymorphs in a Ce55Al45 metallic glass. The large density difference observed between the two polyamorphs is attributed to their different electronic and atomic structures, in particular the bond shortening revealed by ab initio modelling of the effects of f-electron delocalization8,9,10. This discovery offers a new perspective of the amorphous state of metals, and has implications for understanding the structure, evolution and properties of metallic glasses and related liquids. Our work also opens a new avenue towards technologically useful amorphous alloys that are compositionally identical but with different thermodynamic, functional and rheological properties11 due to different bonding and structural characteristics.

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Figure 1: XRD patterns of the Ce55Al45 metallic glass in a diamond anvil cell.
Figure 2: Specific volume versus pressure for amorphous Ce55Al45.
Figure 3: Comparison of the structure factors for the two amorphous polymorphs of Ce55Al45 at comparable pressures.
Figure 4: Comparison of spin-resolved electron density of states (DOS), obtained for the two amorphous Ce55Al45 phases.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering, under contract No. DE-FG02-03ER46056. The APS and HPCAT facilities were supported by DOE-BES, DOE-NNSA (CDAC), NSF, DOD-TACOM and the W. M. Keck Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA

    H. W. Sheng, Y. Q. Cheng, W. K. Luo & E. Ma

  2. HPCAT, Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Building 434E, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA

    H. Z. Liu

  3. Center for the Condensed Matter Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, China

    H. Z. Liu

  4. Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 72 Wenhua Road, Shenyang 110016, China

    J. Wen

  5. XOR, Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA

    P. L. Lee & S. D. Shastri

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Correspondence to H. W. Sheng or E. Ma.

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Sheng, H., Liu, H., Cheng, Y. et al. Polyamorphism in a metallic glass. Nature Mater 6, 192–197 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1839

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