Figure 1
Five Bernal polyhedra: (a) Tetrahedron, (b) Octahedron; (c) Trigonal prism capped with three half octahedra; (d) Archimedean antiprism capped with two half octahedra; (e) Tetragonal dodecahedron.4848 Bernal JD. Geometry of the Structure of Monatomic Liquids. Nature. 1960;185(4706):68-70.
Figure 2
The illustration of pair distribution function.5656 Wang WH. The nature and properties of amorphous matter. Progress in Physics. 2013;33(5):177-351.
Figure 3
Micro-crystallite model.
Figure 4. (a)
Illustration of an atomic jump; (b) The creation of free volume.7373 Spaepen F. A microscopic mechanism for steady state inhomogeneous flow in metallic glasses. Acta Metallurgica. 1977;25(4):407-415.
Figure 5
Gaskell's stereochemical model: (a) Regular trigonal prismatic coordination; (b) Edge-sharing of polyhedra.8787 Gaskell PH. A new structural model for transition metal-metalloid glasses. Nature. 1978;276(5687):484-485.
Figure 6. (a)
2D Miracle dense cluster model; (b) 3D cluster model.9999 Miracle DB. A structural model for metallic glasses. Nature Materials. 2004;3(10):697-702.
Figure 7. (a)
The coordination number distribution of solute atoms in several metallic glasses; (b) The corresponding polyhedron structure.103103 Sheng HW, Luo WK, Alamgir FM, Bai JM, Ma E. Atomic packing and short-to -medium-range order in metallic glasses. Nature. 2006;439(7075):419-425.
Figure 8. (a)
The icosahedral type ordering of cluster in metallic glasses; (b)
(c) and (d) The five-fold symmetry of cluster connections for Ni81B19, Ni80P20 and Zr84Pt16, respectively.103103 Sheng HW, Luo WK, Alamgir FM, Bai JM, Ma E. Atomic packing and short-to -medium-range order in metallic glasses. Nature. 2006;439(7075):419-425.
Figure 9
A case of 20-atom supercluster.112112 Antonowicz J, Pietnoczka A, Drobiazg T, Almyras GA, Papageorgiou DG, Evangelakis GA. Icosahedral order in Cu-Zr amorphous alloys studied by means of X-ray absorption fine structure and molecular dynamics simulations. Philosophical Magazine. 2012;92(15):1865-1875.
Figure 10. (a)
The experimental principle; (b) The three-dimensional profile of a calculated electron nanoprobe with a FWHM beam size of ~0.36nm; (c) The image of local atomic order in metallic glasses.114114 Hirata A, Guan P, Fujita T, Hirotsu Y, Inoue A, Yavari AR, et al. Direct observation of local atomic order in a metallic glass. Nature Materials. 2011;10(1):28-33.
Figure 11
Flow unit model.123123 Liu ST, Wang Z, Peng HL, Yu HB, Wang WH. The activation energy and volume of flow units of metallic glasses. Scripta Materialia. 2012;67(1):9-12.
Figure 12
Tight-bond cluster model: A change in the connections between clusters below and above Tg (black: below Tg and red: above Tg).128128 Fan C, Ren Y, Liu CT, Liaw PK, Yan HG, Egami T. Atomic migration and bonding characteristics during a glass transition investigated using as-cast Zr-Cu-Al. Physical Review B. 2011;83(19):195207.
Figure 13. (a)
When T< Tg, the clusters are connected to each other by interconnecting zone; (b) When T> Tg, the clusters are separated by free volume.127127 Fan C, Liaw PK, Liu CT. Atomistic model of amorphous materials. Intermetallics. 2009;17(1-2):86-87.
Figure 14. (a)
Tight-bond cluster model; (b) The interconnecting zone between clusters; (c) Free volume zone; (d) The connecting condition between atoms in the boundary of clusters.
Figure 15
Changes of the relative fractions of cluster, i-zone and free volume atom pairs with temperature in AIMD simulations.132132 Zhao JF, Tang Z, Kelton KF, Liu CT, Liaw PK, Inoue A, et al. Evolution of the atomic structure of a supercooled Zr55Cu35Al10 liquid. Intermetallics. 2017;82:53-58.
Figure 16
Changes of the relative fractions of Al, Cu and Zr cluster, i-zone and free volume atom pairs with temperature in AIMD simulations.132132 Zhao JF, Tang Z, Kelton KF, Liu CT, Liaw PK, Inoue A, et al. Evolution of the atomic structure of a supercooled Zr55Cu35Al10 liquid. Intermetallics. 2017;82:53-58.
