Bulk metallic glasses — a new engineering material

The development of new metallic alloys which form bulk glasses at low cooling rates has led to significant advances in the study of undercooled liquid metals and the glass transition in metallic systems. For the first time it has become possible to carry out measurements of thermophysical properties such as specific heat, viscosity, atomic diffusion, and crystal nucleation rates for liquid alloys over the full temperature range of the undercooled melt. These new materials exhibit a rich variety of phenomena, such as liquid crystal phase separation and nanocrystalline phase formation, and have interesting potential as engineering materials.