Glass transition temperature of bulk metallic glasses: A linear connection with the mixing enthalpy

A linear relationship is found between the glass transition temperature Tg and the absolute value of the mixing enthalpy, |ΔHchem|, for bulk metallic glass systems. The increasing (or lowering) of Tg with an admixture of metals or other elements manifests itself in the larger (or smaller) of |ΔHchem| in a given system. The results indicate that the composition dependence of Tg results from the change of excess entropy (Sex) during thermal excitation. The |ΔHchem|, which relates to the strength of interaction among different atoms, corresponds to part of the Sex at Tg [Sex(Tg)]. The glass transition temperatures for Cu-Zr (Hf)-, Zr-Cu-, and La-Al-based glassy alloys are correlated with the interaction intensity between their based binary eutectic compositions, respectively.