Long-Range Topological Order in Metallic Glass

Glass lacks the long-range periodic order that characterizes a crystal. In the Ce(75)Al(25) metallic glass (MG), however, we discovered a long-range topological order corresponding to a single crystal of indefinite length. Structural examinations confirm that the MG is truly amorphous, isotropic, and unstrained, yet under 25 gigapascals hydrostatic pressures, every segment of a centimeter-length MG ribbon devitrifies independently into a face-centered cubic (fcc) crystal with the identical orientation. By using molecular dynamics simulations and synchrotron x-ray techniques, we elucidate that the mismatch between the large Ce and small Al atoms frustrates the crystallization and causes amorphization, but a long-range fcc topological order still exists. Pressure induces electronic transition in Ce, which eliminates the mismatch and manifests the topological order by the formation of a single crystal.