Breaking the vitrification limitation of monatomic metals

X Tong and YE Zhang and BS Shang and HP Zhang and ZZ Li and Y Zhang and G Wang and YH Liu and Y Zhao and B Zhang and HB Ke and JH Zhou and HY Bai and WH Wang, NATURE MATERIALS, 23 (2024).

DOI: 10.1038/s41563-024-01967-0

The question of whether all materials can solidify into the glassy form proposed by Turnbull half a century ago remains unsolved. Some of the simplest systems of monatomic metals have not been vitrified, especially the close-packed face-centred cubic metals. Here we report the vitrification of gold, which is notoriously difficult to be vitrified, and several similar close-packed face-centred cubic and hexagonal metals using a method of picosecond pulsed laser ablation in a liquid medium. The vitrification occurs through the rapid cooling during laser ablation and the inhibition of nucleation by the liquid medium. Using this method, a large number of atomic configurations, including glassy configurations, can be generated simultaneously, from which a stable glass state can be sampled. Simulations demonstrate that the favourable stability of monatomic metals stems from the strong topological frustration of icosahedra-like clusters. Our work breaks the limitation of the glass-forming ability of matter, indicating that vitrification is an intrinsic property of matter and providing a strategy for the preparation and design of metallic glasses from an atomic configuration perspective. It is shown that gold and several similar close-packed face-centred cubic and hexagonal metals can be vitrified, which breaks the limitation of the glass-forming ability of matter.

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