Structural aspects of glass-formation in Ni-Nb melts

We report on investigations of the static structure factors of glass-forming Ni59.5Nb40.5 alloy melts by combination of the containerless processing technique of electrostatic levitation with neutron diffraction. By application of the isotopic substitution method, the full set of partial structure factors was determined. The short-range order in liquid Ni59.5Nb40.5 is characterized by a large nearest neighbor coordination number of ZNN = 14.3 and a chemical short-range order with an affinity for the formation of heterogeneous Nb-Ni nearest neighbors. The structure factors observed here in the liquid state closely resemble those reported for amorphous Nb-Ni solids. The comparison with earlier results on the short-range structure in Zr-based glass-forming melts suggests that a large local density of packing, chemical order, and structural frustration are, amongst others, common structural properties of these metallic glass-forming systems, which favor glass-formation.