Absence of 2.5 power law for fractal packing in metallic glasses. (29th May 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Feng, Jianrui; Chen, Pengwan; Li, Mo
• Is Part Of: Journal of physics. Volume 30:Number 25(2018)
• Publication Date: 2018-05-29
• Subjects: amorphous solids -- fractal -- icosahedral clusters -- power law scaling; Condensed matter -- Periodicals; Matière condensée -- Périodiques; Vaste stoffen; Vloeistoffen; Natuurkunde; Electronic journals; Computer network resources; 530.4105
• DOI: 10.1088/1361-648X/aac45f
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0953-8984

Abstract

Abstract: Atomic packing is still a mystery for topologically disordered amorphous solids owing primarily to the absence of Bragg diffraction in this class of materials. Among many hypotheses, fractal packing is suggested based on a scaling relation with '2.5 power law' found in multicomponent metallic glasses. Here we examine the atomic packing critically in a pure Tantalum metallic glass under hydrostatic pressure. Without complications of chemical compositions as in the multicomponent systems, the genuine amorphous structure along in the single component metallic glass exhibits a cubic scaling exponent that indicates absence of the 2.5 power law. However, fractal-like short- and medium-range icosahedral cluster packing is observed; but these substructures do not contribute to the fractal dimension through the power law scaling.