Voronoi analysis of the structure of Ni-Zr-Al ternary metallic glass

Ni-Zr metallic glasses have been recognized to be unstable in comparison with Cu-Zr metallic glasses. An analysis of Voronoi polyhedra in the RMC simulations based on the diffraction data could characterize the atomic configurations around Ni and Cu atoms. The polyhedra around Ni atoms are dominated by trigonal prism-like, Archimedian antiprism-like, and similar polyhedra. In contrast, icosahedron-like polyhedra are preferred for Cu. The Ni-Zr glasses have been reported to stabilize by adding Al. Therefore, in this work, the analysis of Voronoi polyhedra around Ni, Zr and Al atoms for Ni ₂₅Zr₆₀ Al₁₅ ternary metallic glass was carried out in order to clarify the difference between the atomic structures for the binary and ternary metallic glasses. Trigonal prism-like, Archimedian antiprism-like and similar polyhedra, which are dominated in the Ni-Zr metallic glasses, decreased in number by adding Al to the Ni-Zr system. On the contrary, the number of icosahedron-like polyhedra was found to increase. The results apparently indicate that the addition of Al into Ni-Zr binary system promote the formation of icosahedron-like polyhedra in the structure. Therefore, from these results, we can easily recognize that icosahedron-like polyhedra play an important role to stabilize the structure of metallic glasses.