Toward atomic-scale understanding of structure-dynamics-properties relations for metallic glasses

Abstract

Disorder and amorphous systems constitute a large body of modern scientific and technological research, where metallic glasses represent a simple realistic model material for fundamental inquiries and find increasingly widespread applications. Thanks to advances in experimental and computational techniques, recent decades have witnessed substantial progress in elucidating the nature of metallic glass from the atomic levels. We summarize key achievements in atomic packing, structural rearrangements governing the dynamics process, relaxation behaviors, mechanical and functional properties in metallic glasses. It reveals that cooperative and collective motions and dynamic facilitation, occurring at the medium-range order scale, hold the keys for several outstanding issues. We put forward open questions and future challenges and consider what could be done to establish a general glassy theory.