Subpeaks of structure factors for rapidly quenched metals

Abstract

From molecular-dynamics simulations, it is demonstrated that the structure factor has a second-peak splitting feature not only for glass states but also for supercooled-liquid states in some metallic cases. This appears to be due primarily to the presence of icosahedronlike clusters in these cases. This suggests that a laboratory or simulated metallic glass is generally a distorted metallic solid including a significant amount of icosahedra, each consisting of 13 atoms. This lends strong support to one of various existing structural models, namely, the Briant model.