Superior glass-forming ability and its correlation with density in Ce–Ga–Cu ternary bulk metallic glasses

Abstract

We report the formation and conventional density measurements of the ternary Ce70GaxCu30−x (at.%) glassy alloys in a wide composition range of 4 ≤ x ≤ 15. The best glassy formers with critical diameters of at least 10 mm, were found locating at the middle Ga composition range of 6 ≤ x ≤ 10, coinciding with the alloys having the highest density values. Our results provide a quantitative experimental evidence for the density dependent glass forming ability in a multicomponent metallic glass-forming system, which has been rarely reported before. The results facilitate a further precise study on the formation and structure in metallic glasses.