Observations of distinct atomic packings in Cu–Nb metallic glasses synthesized by ion beam mixing

The structural transformation and disordered atomic packing of metallic glasses in a selected immiscible system at equilibrium, i.e. the Cu–Nb system characterized by a positive heat of formation, are studied using ion beam mixing far from equilibrium. The experimental results indicate that the Cu–Nb metallic glasses could be formed in a composition range from 30 to 85 at.% of Nb and that the Cu–Nb metallic glasses are formed through two different structural phase transition routes, i.e. from the Nb-based body centred cubic and face centred cubic solid solutions, in which the two distinct predominant atomic packings have icosahedral and icositetrahedral orderings, respectively, revealed by the respective diffraction patterns. These observations not only help in formulating a general atomic structural spectrum for the binary metallic glasses, but also suggest an important concept of structural heredity: that the crystalline structure of the constituent metals plays a decisive role in determining the atomic structure of the resultant metallic glasses.