Kinetic evidence for the structural similarity between a supercooled liquid and an icosahedral phase in Zr65Al7.5Ni10Cu12.5Ag5 bulk metallic glass

By differential scanning calorimetric measurement, the kinetics of the phase transformation present in Zr65Al7.5Ni10Cu12.5Ag5 bulk metallic glass during continuous heating was investigated. It was found that the effective activation energy from a supercooled liquid to an icosahedral quasicrystalline phase is much lower than that from the supercooled liquid to eutectic crystalline phases. In addition, the activation energy from the icosahedral phase to the crystalline phases is almost the same as that from the supercooled liquid to the crystalline phases. Both of them support that the local atomic structure is similar for the supercooled liquid and the icosahedral phase in the bulk metallic glass.